Ranma Nibunnoichi : Reflections Vol 1 : 2 : 3
by avmorgan
Summary: Complete. What if the copies of Ranma turned out to be a hint of something far more? Can Ranma survive the Mirror of Broken Souls? Diverging continuation of the Two Ranmas story V35 P14. Warning: Explicit sex in P38,40,41.
1. Three Ranmas?

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

**Disclaimer:** _Ranma Nibunnoichi, and the associated cast and concepts are the property of Rumiko Takahashi and those publishers and distributors to whom she has given official rights. It is not the intention of this work to infringe upon those rights. This story may not be purchased or sold without the express permission of the writer, meaning me, the creator, meaning Rumiko Takahashi, or those agencies to whom the creator has given such rights or privileges. The ideas explored are those of the author, and should not be construed to express the opinions or intentions of the creator or associated agencies. _

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**Author's Note:** _I have been an avid fan of Ranma ½ manga, anime and fan fiction for years. I am also a writer and artist. In spite of these two things, I did not seriously consider creating any of my own fan fiction until now. Before addressing the story I chose to write, I want to comment on why I chose to write it. Over the past few years I have seen other fans take this cast and explore a wonderful assortment of possibilities. Many excellent ideas have been developed, and I felt I would have been walking in someone else's shadow, or stepping on several people's toes, to explore the ideas inspired by their additions to Ranma ½. Still, I had those ideas, and they eventually led me back to the original series where I discovered an excellent possibility I had not yet seen explored. In the original series, the conclusion of the "Two Ranmas" storyline was left entirely to the imagination of the readers. It was a perfect invitation for a fan fic, and offered me a foundation for many volumes of ongoing fan fics. **Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections** begins after Part 4 of Volume 35, and explores the events which unfolded during the week when the Tendo Household was stuck with two amorous copies of Ranma, one male and one female. _

**Revised Author's Note: **_The only changes to this documentapart from a typo or twoare in the disclaimer area. A new, revised version of **Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections** will be appearing under the heading of **Reflections V.1 - Stuck in the Middle With You**. This story has been evolving from day one. By the time I finished **Reflections,** I had produced enough material for three complete volumes and the story was still evolving in new directions. It had taken on a life of its own at some point. I could not stop the ideas from spilling out. Before I knew it, it was no longer the story I had intended to write. Nor was it the best story I could have written. As I worked on the fourth volume, intended as a transition from Ranma Nibunnoichi to Ranko Nibunnoichi, I realized it would become necessary to go back and revise everything, taking advantage of things I learned in the process of writing **Reflections** and the "bonus" volume, **It's All in the ****Reflexes.** Thanks to all of the reviews I received for both stories, and the special efforts of Daniel Jess Gibson and Fangorn (Thanks guys!) that process has begun. _

_ In order to accommodate the growth of the story and the writer, I need to update it a bit so that it can continue. Some of the changes are simply structural. It will be a five volume story, each volume having fifteen chapters. In the fifth volume you will find out why the next story is called **Ranko Nibunnoichi - Refractions**. Sadly, that does mean there will be noticeable changes. Some of the changes will be very subtle, while others will be screamingly obvious. For example, the reflections will no longer be identified as Copy-chan and Copy-kun. The suffixes -chan and -kun, by which the copies were previously distinguished from each other, were not really suitable. In Ranma's case, the same suffixes have developed into a tongue in cheek way to emphasize which side of Ranma is being referred to, but that is not a proper way to distinguish a boy from a girl. The -chan/-kun suffixes are normally used to indicate a level of familiarity between two people regardless of their gender. _

_ I am sorry if this upsets some of you. Feel free to stick with the version you like best. I will keep a copy of the original version here, if allows it, and on my personal site. For the most part, I am doing this revision for my own satisfaction. So far, I have published a rough draft. What I want to create, what I hope you will also appreciate, is a story that makes the most out of the ideas invested in it. I hope to make it a little less confusing as well. Comments and Criticism are welcome as always. This is still my first fan fic, after all. My only request is that my readers offer examples or explanations to ensure that their suggestions will enable me to improve the story._

**Mature Content: **_Because **Reflections** was originally intended to integrate with the series, before it evolved into an outright divergence, it faced some obvious limitations, which many fan fic readers found disappointing. On the surface, the situation screamed for a lovely lemon flavor. I have a healthy (avid) interest in sex and sexuality, so it was not a case where I couldn't or wouldn't go there… it was just that going there would have upset the status quo tremendously. Now that **Reflections **is no longer a "missing chapter" of the original series, the ideas that support a lemon filling, can be explored. Part of the story deals with sexual awakening and experimentation, and some of the plot hinges on sexual events, and must be included in the R rated version. In some cases, the fact that sex occurred is the only thing a lemon scene contributes to the plot, and those scenes will be found only in the unrated version of the story. Even those scenes have a value and significance beyond mere fan service, since the way people act and interact in intimate circumstances is as important as how they conduct themselves in other circumstances. _

Part One: Three Ranmas?

The promise of spring hung in the air over Tokyo's Nerima Ward. It was a warm day, for late winter, spiced by the scent of rain. Naturally, the shower had lasted just long enough to catch the group out in the open, as they trudged home from the train station. Now, only a few puddles and damp spots in the shade remained. Everything else, including their clothes and hair, had dried in the sun already. Akane sighed and glanced up to the side. It was strange seeing Ranma, walking nonchalantly along the top of the fence, unchanged by the freak down pour. It was even stranger that this sight was accompanied by the familiar sound of Ranma-chan bickering behind her. Especially since the same voice could be heard arguing with her.

"This is really starting to creep me out," Akane muttered.

Her mind flashed back to the scene in Mirror Mansion, as Ranma crashed into the warded curtain and ripped the seal away from the cursed mirror, allowing another clone to escape. Looking up to the side again she repeated her initial comment. "Why did he have to be male?"

"What are you starin' at?" the boy asked, catching her glaring up at him.

"Baka," she turned her head and kept on walking.

"Kawaikune!" he muttered, turning to look at the red-headed girls walking hand in hand along the fence top behind him. "What is that chunky, tom-boy's problem?" he asked in confused annoyance.

Ranma-chan looked at her twin, then back at the boy, and suppressed a shudder. Ranma and Akane had gone to several lengths to keep the two clones separated during the trip back to the dojo. From the moment they had laid eyes on each other, they had been obsessively attracted to each other. Neither of them seemed to have possessed a clue what to do with a lover, once found. The "throw yourself at someone and kiss them" tactic Copy-chan had used the week before was almost comical when doubled. It took them a while to stop lunging at each other and banging heads. By the time they were on the train bound for Nerima, the pair had impulsively progressed to hugging and kissing. The image of the two making out in their seat on the train sent pains and chills shooting through Ranma-chan's nervous system. "This is creeping me out too," she muttered under her breath. Bending her head sternly, she pushed the boy forward, "Keep moving. I need to get you to the dojo and out of sight before either of you get me into any more trouble!"

The boy allowed Ranma-chan to push him along the fence toward their destination. He showed no discomfort or concern at backpedaling down the fence pole in front of Ranma. He was somewhat disturbed that the boy who had let him out of the mirror had turned into a perfect twin of the girl he had loved at first sight. This prodding had been the first clue—since the startling transformation—of which girl was which. Taking her free hand, as a means to keep track, he finally raised the question that had been bothering him. "So. You gonna tell me why you turned into a girl? Why you look like her?"

"Aw, man! I told you I'd explain it all if you came with me to the dojo."

"You said that before you… changed."

Ranma-chan grit her teeth. "Whatever. Get this straight first. I don't look like her, she looks like me! I was in this form the first time I looked in the mirror, and I was a guy when I looked in it back there!" she growled, referring to Mirror Mansion. "Both of you are copies of me," she asserted for the hundredth time.

The boy tensed in alarm, "You don't mean…? Aw, man! I'm not going to turn out to be a freak like you am I?" He twisted away in horror.

Ranma-chan cringed and her face darkened with anger as Akane's voice trailed back to them, "If you're so disgusted, WHY ARE YOU STILL HOLDING HIS HAND?" Akane kicked the fence so hard it wavered under their feet and spilled all three of them into the canal opposite the sidewalk. Ranma-chan plummeted toward the water in resignation. Copy-chan betrayed only the slightest surprise, while "Copy-kun" went into a full blown panic. The three plunged into the water and surfaced, spluttering in shock at the cold, shouting in unison, "What didja do that for?" The boy was patting himself on the chest in terror until Akane leaned over and stuck out her tongue.

"Baka! Didn't you notice that the rain had no effect on you?"

Before the boy could answer, he was launched over the fence by a sleeper uppercut from Ranma-chan. She had moved in an instant rage, wounded by the simple fact that the boy was immune to her curse. Before she had stopped shaking in silent fury, she was launched after him by her other clone.

"Go pick on your own pervert!" the girl shouted as Ranma-chan crashed down in the middle of the street. Akane's eye twitched ominously, as she stood frozen for an instant. Copy-chan had started calling Akane "pervert-girl" when she had been chasing after Ranma, and clearly did not intend to stop. While Akane silently debated between maiming and murder, Copy-chan leapt over the fence, went to her "lover's" side and cradled his head in her lap. "Hey! Are you okay?"

Akane lurched forward to pound the girl into the pavement, as Ranma-chan popped to her feet and rushed forward to tackle the girl, moving neatly into position to intercept Akane's elbow drop. Ranma was slammed down into her duplicates with enough force to knock the air out of all of them. Despite the fact that Copy-kun was proving to be just as annoying as Ranma, Akane had agreed to keep the couple separated until they were all safe at the dojo. As they lay there stunned, Akane grabbed the boy clone by the pig-tail and dragged him off towards the Tendo Dojo. By the time the Ranma-chans had recovered, Akane was dragging him around a corner. The girls stood up muttering a litany of unflattering things about Akane and limped the last two blocks to the dojo.

Akane heard the two red-heads rushing to catch up to her as she passed through the gates of the dojo. Tuning out their loud cries for her to wait for them, she stalked up to the house. "Tadaima!" Akane announced her return, dragging "Ranma-kun" into the genkan.

Kasumi turned from watering a little bonsai tree, which sat on a narrow table in the hall across from the front door, and took in the boy's disheveled, unconscious state. One hand came up quickly to cover her mouth. "Oh my," she murmured softly, before composing herself. "Okeirinasai, Akane-chan, Ranma-kun," she smiled. Before she could ask about Ranma's condition, Soun and Genma burst into the tiny entry loudly demanding a report.

"Oi! Akane-kun!…"

"It's about time, Boy!…"

"…Did you get rid of that menace?" they chorused.

Taking in Ranma's state, Genma hauled him to his feet, shaking him, "This is no time to be napping, Boy! Tell me you've done your duty as a martial artist and sent the evil back to where it came from!"

Akane cleared her throat as the boy mumbled in semi-conscious confusion. "About that…" she began.

At that moment, Ranma-chan swept open the entry screen and leaned in with her clone, "Akane! Wait! What are we going to tell…?" Everyone's eyes snapped to the two redheaded girls in surprise, as Akane hung her head in embarrassment. Ranma-chan recoiled in dismay.

"Well, this is hardly a surprise," Nabiki commented, appearing in the hall behind Soun and Genma. With a mischievous grin, she cleared her throat and said loudly, "Will the REAL Ranma Saotome please stand up?"

Ranma-chan immediately began sweating and waving her hands, "Wait, wait. I can explain everything! It's not my fault!"

"And we have a winner!" Nabiki smirked and watched as Soun and Genma loomed over the panicking girl.

"RanMAAAA! What is the meaning of this?" wailed Soun angrily.

"Foolish Boy! How could you fail in such a simple task?"

Akane grabbed Copy-chan and pushed her forward, clearing her throat, "Actually, um… This is mostly her fault."

"Hey!" the buxom red-head complained instantly, ignoring the fuming fathers to turn on Akane. "You were the one who threw the fruit basket!"

"You! You were the one who brought that damned compact along and tried to steal Ranma with it!"

"What? You mean you actually want him?"

"N… No!" Akane blushed and growled, "That doesn't have anything to do with it! You can't just kidnap people like that!"

"Oh, what wonderful news, Saotome-kun! My little girl rescued your son from an evil demon!"

"Who are you callin' a demon?" the girl snarled at Soun. As Soun lurched back in fright, he knocked the pitcher of water out of Kasumi's hand. It sailed unnoticed overhead, seeking a suitable target, before coming down on Genma.

"Oh! She's so SCARY!" Soun whimpered, cowering in the corner.

"Oh my!" Kasumi finally interjected. "Maybe we should all sit down and discuss this over tea?"

Ranma and Akane marched the clones through the living room, and out onto the patio. Ranma picked up a hot tea-kettle from the table as she passed, and stepped out onto the grass to quickly explain the curse to the duplicates. "Alright, pay attention. I'm not gonna explain this twice," she began, explaining how her father took her to Jusenkyo and knocked her, at the time him, into the Nyanniichaun. Using half the water in the kettle, he restored himself to normal, and as expected, Copy-kun instantly produced cold water to test the story. Ranma fumed, but recalled how others had reacted to the same story. Ukyo had spent hours pouring hot and cold water over her, out of sheer amusement. Ranma, using the last of the hot water, warned the couple that the curse was the only problem in his life they were spared from. It was in their own best interest to avoid contact with anyone outside the dojo. Not that he believed he could truly keep the two from bring new chaos to his life, but it was worth a try.

After wringing out his shirt and airing it for a few moments to dry, he joined the others at the table, where Akane had finished explaining what had happened at Mirror Mansion. Everyone already knew about the cursed mirror, and the spirit that stole the image of whoever looked into it to fulfill her dream of finding true love. It did not take much to explain the sudden chaos as Copy-chan tried to abduct Ranma-kun, using the little trap mirror they had received from the old man of the mansion. Or, the inevitable consequence of him tripping as Akane set him free, crashing into the mirror, tearing down the seal and looking into it a second time. Fortunately, Copy-kun spotted Copy-chan at once. It was "love" at first sight. Akane and Ranma had seen no other option but to bring the couple home until repairs to the mirror's seal could once again be completed.

"Another week?" Soun moaned, as Kasumi poured tea next to Akane.

Ranma glanced over his shoulder and saw the couple mooning over each other. Closing his eyes, he reminded himself that they were just reflections, and did not have anything, really to do with him. That was not really him over there drooling over his female side, he strained to convince himself.

"You are so cute!" the boy declared, taking the girls hands in his.

"You are more handsome!" she protested modestly, her eyes twinkling.

"Good couple!" Ranma quipped, oblivious to the fact that it sounded like he was bragging. He was just hoping their mutual absorption would prevent a repeat of girl's rampage.

"You are so right, Ranma!" Kasumi smiled, delighted by the sight of at least one happy couple in the house.

"They're so alike too…" Nabiki deadpanned.

Akane just sat there with her eyes narrowing, pretending to complete indifference to the situation. Down the table, her expression was mirrored by Genma, safe in the retreat of his panda form.

"I guess this is sort of like a honeymoon for them," Kasumi put in thoughtfully, after a moment. Tea sprayed forth from Akane and Genma. Ranma jerked as if he'd just been hit by lightening, his eye twitching madly. Nabiki raised an eyebrow.

"Ka- Ka- Kasumi!" Soun stammered, looking shocked.

Genma stood up frantically waving a sign, It's an abomination! No copy of MY son can be allowed to do THAT! Ranma and Akane flinched away as lurid images of boy-type Ranma molesting girl-type Ranma danced through the minds of everyone but Kasumi.

Akane whipped around on her knees, shouting, "YOU PERVERTS!" A roundhouse punch accompanied the cry, catching Ranma on the chin and blasting him out the open door into Copy-kun and Copy-chan, spilling them all out into the yard.

Ranma, after skipping all the way into the koi pond, splashed to her feet shouting, "I'm not LIKE that!"

"What didja do THAT for?" the other two demanded in unison.

Soun came out onto the balcony and declared, sternly, "Ranma! I forbid you to sleep with Ranma under my roof!"

Everyone stared at Soun for a second. Soun, it should be noted, had not been that quick to catch on to everyone else using "Copy-chan" and "Copy-kun" to distinguish the reflections from Ranma. Oddly enough, his error in address sufficed to penetrate his eldest daughter's cheerful obliviousness. The synapse marked "clue" connected to the synapse marked "ecchi" in an instant of unrepressed thought.

"Oh my!" Kasumi blinked. "You don't think they'd do THAT, do you?"

Everyone catapulted onto their respective faces, spastically.

Ranma sprung to her feet again, growling, "I don't even know what you're TALKIN' ABOUT! How can I NOT sleep with myself?"

"Ranma-kun! Think about what you're saying!" Nabiki warned with a shake of her finger, but Akane had already reacted.

"Ranma no HENTAI! Don't you have ANY restraint or morals?" Akane advanced on her fiancé, mallet-sama in hand, amidst a pillar of blue flames.

Ranma backed up slowly, hands out in warding gestures. "W- wait! Are you insane? Do you ever hear what I am saying?"

"You said you wanted to sleep with yourself!" Akane growled. "PERVERT!"

Ranma hung her head, while Akane closed the distance menacingly. On an instinctive level, the red-head estimated the power and intent of the other girl's rage. It had soared quickly to lethal levels. If she ran, Akane would charge and kill her. If she stood her ground, Akane would charge and kill her. If she wanted to live this time, she would be forced to defend herself. Even in deadly peril, such as her keenly honed instincts assured her she was in, she didn't want to raise a hand against Akane. At the same time, she was sure she had not said nor done anything to deserve her fiancée's anger. Almost to herself, she muttered, "Damnit, Akane, there ain't nothin' wrong with a guy sleepin' by himself. It ain't like I've got any other option…"

Akane, having closed to attack range, had already swung her mallet high. As those words penetrated, her hands suddenly let go on the downswing, and the mallet flew off over the compound wall and out of sight. Akane stood there, meeting Ranma's eyes, for several long breaths. "Did… did you say… b- by yourself?"

Ranma scowled, "What didja think I was sayin'?"

"You don't want sleep with one of THEM?"

"Do you think I am some kind of pervert?"

"Geez, Ranma-kun! Get a clue!" Nabiki shook her head.

Akane and Ranma remained squared off, both of them blushing in confused fury. Ranma's clones stared at the two of them. Off in the distance, a large object could be heard crashing to Earth with a skull ringing KLUNK followed by a distant, "Raaaaanmaaaaaa! This is YOUR FAULT!"

Kasumi broke into the silence to muse aloud, "Having three Ranma's in the house could get confusing. Maybe we should come up with some different names so there are no misunderstandings."

"Now there's an idea," Nabiki smirked.

As afternoon settled toward evening, Ranma and Akane completed their homework in something of an armed truce. Ranma kept glaring at Akane, silently bitter over the fact that she had never responded to his last question, nor apologized for the misunderstanding. Akane kept glaring at Ranma suspiciously, waiting for him to prove what a pervert he really was. The two mirror clones had given up on trying to sneak off for some privacy, because Soun and Genma had shadowed them at every turn, harassing them into sullen complacency in front of the television.

Strangely enough, the pair had proven difficult on the matter of names. They automatically responded to "Ranma" and seemed to understand they were being addressed when referred to as "Copy-chan" or "Copy-kun" but they scowled and dismissed a catalogue of names suggested by the others. Memories of Pantyhose Taro's notion of a perfect name kept everyone from eliciting a suggestion from the clones themselves. Eventually, the topic of names was dismissed. They were only supposed to be around for a week, and it was inevitable the two would be mistaken for Ranma more often than not, or in Copy-chan's case, Ranko, if Nodoka paid a visit. Kami forbid! It made more sense for them to respond to names he used. Both of them would respond to "Ranma" in general, but if they needed to be distinguished from him (or her as the case might be) Copy-kun (-chan) would suffice. For some reason, the suggestion to dub the girl "Raneko" was shouted down by all three Ranmas, and dismissed with the accompaniment of shudders.

Ranma spared a glance from his homework to check on the doppelgangers. They were sitting close together, speaking in hushed voices, paying more attention to each other than the show on television. He resisted the urge to go over and hear what they were discussing so intently. The conspiratorial whispering made fine beads of sweat pop out over his brow. Since there were no cats around, he decided a lethal dose of curiosity was not needed at the moment, and forced himself to ignore the couple. His mind strayed off on a tangent, as he wondered how to harness the "curiosity killed the cat" technique. Naturally, this was more important to him than his homework.

Time passed, marked by the sound of chimes dancing in the breeze.

"Time to eat, everyone," Kasumi announced a short time later, from the door to the kitchen.

Akane and Ranma jumped up to clear the table and put their schoolwork away. It was left to them to help set the table, as Nabiki continued to lounge in front of the television, spying on the clones, and Genma and Soun remained glued to their game of Shogi. Neither of them dared turn to acknowledge Kasumi with a look, or the other would swiftly rearrange the board.

Inevitably, the smell of food lured Genma's attention and Soun cheered his victory. The fathers joined the rest at the table and praised the bounty loudly.

"Itedakimas!" everyone chorused, and dug into the food. A quick four way battle ensued between Genma and the Ranmas, with the older man struggling to defend his meal on three fronts.

As dinner came to a close, the group discussed sleeping arrangements. Soun's declaration still stood, though it was Kasumi who restated it as, "It just would not be proper for the children to share accommodations." The clones looked on, glares sharpening with every word. Ranma and the others could not help but try to keep them separated. The idea of the two of them getting together, intimately, was too creepy for them to stand. They were in silent agreement. No one particularly cared about them fawning over each other, but… they actively would try to discourage anything ecchi or hentai.

"It would be best if Copy-chan slept with you tonight, Akane-chan. Copy-kun can sleep with Ranma-kun and Saotome-ojisan," Kasumi suggested.

"Are you sure it's a good idea to put those boys together, Oneechan? I mean, one little splash of water and…" Nabiki held up her hands and shrugged. It need not be said that chaos would ensue.

"Erk!" Ranma choked. "I'd rather spend another week sleeping in a tree!"

"Hah! Like I'd do anything with a pervert like you!"

"Hey! That's MY line!" Akane fumed.

"No one is going to come between me and my Ranma!" Copy-chan declared, standing. "Put that silly panda outside for the night, let Akane sleep with HER Ranma, and that leaves a futon for me and MINE!"

The mere idea that this was a way to get Ranma and Akane together was enough to get Soun and Genma to their feet, pushing the clones together, "That's right! What a perfect solution!"

Ranma almost bought into it too, "Gee, Pops. Are you volunteering to sleep outside then?"

"Er… No, boy. Tendo-kun will surely let me sleep on the floor in his room. Right Tendo-kun?"

"Ah, ha ha! Right Saotome-kun!" Soun sweat-dropped.

"But, Father… Surely these two should be married, or at least engaged first?" Kasumi asked wide-eyed.

Genma looked over and opened his mouth, "As their effective father, I…"

Ranma pounded his father out the open door. "Are you insane? Don't EVEN go there!" Ranma stood in the opening, huffing, as his father landed in the koi pond. To himself, "I can't believe he'd even THINK of giving his permission!"

KA-thwump! Ranma was suddenly knocked down in his tracks as a diminuitive form burst into the room from the yard shouting, "Whatta haul! Whatta haul!"

Happosai dumped a bulging bag of lingerie on the floor and quickly reached for a bowl full of food. While the diminutive old man was rapidly stuffing his face, Copy-chan leaned over and pulled out a few pieces of lingerie. Her eyes widened with delight, and she snatched up the bag and sprinted upstairs crying, "Kyaaaaa! I have to try these on!"

Happosai sat there in open-mouthed disbelief. Tears of joy and anger mingled and spilled from his eyes. He sprung to his feet, "Sweeto! Ranma-chan! I am coming!"


	2. Stuck in the Middle With You!

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Two: Stuck in the Middle With You!

The sky outside the Tendo living room was a deep, velvety blue. Genma had sunk meekly back into the koi pond at the sight of his dreaded master dropping in to dinner. Ranma lay twitching, sprawled across the porch threshold. Clinging to consciousness, he replayed what had just happened back in his mind. Kasumi, suggesting boy-type Ranma-clone bunk with Ranma and his father, and girl-type Ranma-clone room with one of the Tendo sisters, had set off a new round of chaos. The pair quickly objected, asserting that they would share a futon, starting the uproar at the table. 

      Genma was cooling it in the pond for almost validating the union of the clones and… Ranma scrunched up his face trying to remember. Sitting up, he slapped his fist into his palm. "That's right!" Happosai had popped in, burdened with a wealth of sexy lingerie, and the girl had sped off with the loot to try some on in preparation for her big night. Happosai had not even given Ranma a second look! "What luck!" Ranma picked up his bowl and resumed eating, delighted to be spared molestation for once.

      "Ranma-chan! Let me help you into those silky darlings!" Happi cried.

      As Happosai chased the girl up the stairs, Nabiki and Akane rose quickly to their feet. One with an eager look and her camera in hand, the other with a look of vengeful determination and a shinai in her fist. 

      "Are you just gonna sit there and eat while that wicked old man molests your twin!?" Akane dragged Ranma to his feet, propelling him along to aid in stopping Happosai, and the girl. 

      "It's not my problem! Why don't you drag him…" Ranma's male twin was suddenly absent from the table. Looking up, they spotted him following Happosai eagerly, ready to cast his vote for the best ensemble. "That pervert!"

      "Hey! That's my line!"

      The fiancées raced up the stairs, following the "perverts" into the spare bedroom. Happosai was proudly laying out lingerie as Copy-kun gaped at the sight of Copy-chan shedding her clothing with total abandon. Leaping into the room, Akane pounded the "pervert" male-clone, while Ranma tried to keep the other one from stripping down. 

      "When are you going to stop being a problem!?" Ranma demanded. 

      "Hey! Watch the hands, mister!" Copy-chan bonked him on the head. 

      "Don't get so excited! I'm pretty damn familiar with… Gyaaah! Cold!" 

      Happosai, having splashed Ranma, handed her a second pile of lingerie, "I knew there were two of you running around!" Happosai had blundered into the middle of Copy-chan's campaign to capture Ranma the week before, but had yet to learn how or why the kami had blessed him with multiple Ranmas. As far as he was concerned, there could never be too many of his favorite student! Always quick to exploit said favorite, he added, "There's no need to fight over them, Ranma-chan! There's plenty for you to model too!" 

      Akane turned, spotted Ranma with the heap of lingerie in her arms, and pounded her into the floor boards. Copy-chan stared at this with wide eyes for a moment. Akane did not even spare her a glance, raving at Ranma-chan, "This will teach you, you shameless, perverted hussy!"

      Ranma reared up, bits of tattered lingerie hanging off of her battered form, "You sexless, macho, tomboy! How many times do I hafta tell ya, I AM NOT *LIKE* THAT!" Ranma, practically hardwired to return insults in kind, could not have said anything else, even to save her own life. Akane puffed up, balling her fists and hammered the disheveled red-head straight back into the wall.

      "You're just as bad as HE is!"

      "Who do you think you're talking to!?"

      Copy-chan blinked, shrugged indifferently, and gleefully finished stripping down to slip into something slinky while Ranma yelled at Akane. "Kyaaa! This is SO sexy!" She twirled around and then froze in shock as something small and bony pressed itself into her bosom. "AAAhhhh! Getitoff, gettitoff!"

      As Copy-chan's distress reached ear splitting decibels, Copy-kun snapped awake and lurched to his feet. He twisted and lunged in to attack, his leg blinking through space like a strobe light. An angry, black blur danced around the lightening series of kicks, then bounced into focus near Copy-kun's shoulder. Without hesitating, the boy dropped to his chest and whipped through a windmill kick, hands planted on the floor boards. 

      The kick launched Happosai at a wall, but the agile, old master rebounded, laughing madly as he pulled a second water balloon out of his gi. "Not too shabby, son!" Happosai crowed, dousing the boy with water. "Three of them! Oh happy day!" Rocketing in on sheer momentum, arms spread to grope the succulent bosom this excellent technique would summon, he crashed into the boy's hard, flat chest. "No! What is this!?" 

      In the moment of distraction, the boy perked up, and squeezed Happosai tight in a bear hug. He locked the old man in place, his gnarled old face pressed to the damp shirt to keep him from ogling his girlfriend. "Gotcha, old man! No way you're gonna peek on MY girlfriend now!"

      Ranma-chan caught this out of the corner of her eye, her gaze hardened. While muttering about the "girlfriend" comment, she appraised the situation. Happosai leeched energy from his female victims, when he molested them. Happosai clearly had not understood that her clones did not share her curse, and had choked on the masculine energy he'd leeched from Copy-kun. 

      While the boy kept Happosai distracted, Ranma darted past Akane, snatching a blanket to cover the girl up. Akane had finally noticed the other red-head and used that instant to lunge forward with her shinai. Copy-chan sensed Akane's attack and dodged, unwittingly allowing Akane to get in Ranma's way. Ranma had whipped the blanket out to snare Copy-chan, and did not notice as it wrapped itself around Akane. Copy-chan, catching on to Ranma's interference, dropped into a leg sweep, tripping the bundled Akane into Ranma, who took the brunt of the impact, as both of them tumbled to the floor. 

      "Ha! You two couldn't work together to save your own lives!"

      "Dammit! Copy-chan!"

      "Don't mind me!" Copy-chan pulled down her eyelid and stuck out her tongue, as Ranma wrestled with the writhing mass of Akane in the blanket. While the couple untangled themselves from the blanket, Copy-chan quickly changed through a series of outfits, provoking an escalation of the struggle between Happosai and the boy. The old man was straining to get his face around to look, and Copy-kun was twisting and writhing to block Happi's view. "Oh! This is so nice! And this too!"

      "Let me see! Let me see! Ranma! You are going to pay for this!"

      "Stop wiggling around you old toad!"

      "Oooo! Look at this!"

      Nabiki, who had taken station at the door after Ranma and Akane raced in, kept the shutter on her camera clicking with glee. "You go, girl! Smile!" and Copy-chan dutifully posed for the camera. "Marvelous, now, turn to the side. What can I say, Copy-chan, you are a natural!"

      Happosai finally squirted out of the boy's grasp and the two began bouncing around the room. Happi fumed, since he was forced to divide his attention between the girl's display and the boy's onslaught. 

      "Nabiki!" Akane sputtered, halfway free of the blanket, "Don't encourage her like that!" In spite of the struggling tom-boy, Ranma was making progress freeing her fiancée from the blanket, albeit becoming more entangled herself in the process.

      "Akane, please relax for a minute," Ranma-chan begged, trying desperately to keep her favorite blanket from being shredded by the other girl's struggles. Akane did pause, not so much to heed Ranma's request, but to reflect on the observation that Copy-chan somehow managed to complete each wardrobe change in the instants where the old man and the boy kept each other distracted from her. Considering where Copy-chan came from, Akane found it hard to credit her with possessing any instinct or intention to preserve her modesty. Certainly not when the outfits seemed more sinful and shameless than abject nudity. Still, in the time it took Ranma to untangle them from the blanket, Copy-chan never once stood naked before male eyes. 

      As Ranma sped over to try and stop Copy-chan from continuing with her little fashion show, and Akane tried in vain to intercept Happosai, Nabiki continued to click the shutter on her camera. Nabiki noticed her little sister's attention was focused more on Copy-chan than the old lecher. "I see you noticed it too," Nabiki casually addressed Akane. 

      "Huh? You mean Copy-chan?" 

      "Yes. It's an ingenious strategy. She draws their attention to herself when she's 'presentable.' They renew their struggle and become distracted. She has a bit of privacy to change and then she starts the cycle again," Nabiki appraised admiringly. Granted, she chose not to mention that this strategy had not foiled her camera. As Copy-chan evaded a hammer strike from Ranma-chan, the Tendo sisters observed that the copy had also picked up the Saotome-exclusive, and technically "sealed" art of the Umisen-ken. Copy-chan suddenly vanished from view, followed almost at once by Ranma-chan's clothes. 

      "D-d-dammit! Now you're askin' for it!" Ranma-chan growled. Naturally, Ranma-chan retaliated in kind, and stripped the other girl bare using the same technique. At the same time, her Copy-chan extended the technique to actually dress Ranma in a stunning bedroom ensemble. Nabiki silently thanked the kami that she had upgraded her camera, holding the rapid-advance tightly. Copy-chan was able to dress the pair as quickly as Ranma-chan could strip away the lingerie. Under such circumstances, Nabiki set a personal speed record changing out the film in her camera, desperate not to miss a single frame.

      "Ranma, you're just making it worse," Akane growled. Her own efforts to deal with the old man and the boy were fruitless as well. Happosai bounded around the room evading Copy-kun, and Akane was spinning in circles just to keep track of them. It was not unlike watching Ranma and P-chan fighting. "Leave her to me, and get those two out of here!" For once, there was no argument. Ranma-chan was happy to retreat from the humiliating onslaught of panties and bras and other unmentionables. That did not mean she was above taking advantage of her presently lingerie clad form to lure Happosai from the room, while Akane put up a screen to hide the other girl from view. 

      With a "Come and get me!" Ranma-chan drew the attention of old man and the boy to her. Looking around and not seeing the other red-head, they pursued her out the door and down the stairs. 

      It took only a moment for Copy-chan to notice her audience had rushed out of the room. Before she could follow, ostensibly to get Copy-kun's opinion on her current ensemble, Akane blocked her, "Hold it right there!"

      "Why are you still getting in my way!? Huh?"

      "Don't get the wrong idea. If you want to be molested by Happosai, be my guest. Just tell me one thing first," Akane crossed her arms and looked at her sternly. Copy-chan sighed and gestured for her to get on with it. "How can even a pervert like you stand to be wearing underwear stolen from someone else?" Akane demanded with a shiver and a look of pure disgust.

      "S-st-stolen? As in, other people have worn these!?" Copy-chan gaped as Akane nodded. Copy-chan stripped off the lingerie, kicking everything into a pile. "Ick! Ew! Gross!" Before Akane could celebrate her success in stopping Copy-chan, the girl ran out of the room stark naked and swearing under her breath. 

      "Where do you think you're going like that!?"

      "I gotta take a bath, you idiot! What do you think?"

      "You freak! Put some clothes on!"

      Copy-chan streaked down the stairs, ploughing through a shocked Soun and Genma, who were in full retreat from the mad dance that erupted in the wake of Ranma-chan, Happosai and Copy-kun chasing through the living room. Copy-chan vanished into the furo as Akane paused to check on the fathers. Each bore an angry red footprint square in the middle of their faces. Akane dragged the pair into the living room as Ranma-chan raced into the kitchen, barely ahead of the boy and the old man. 

      "Darling! Don't run!"

      "Hotcha! Nowhere to run to!" Happosai cackled.

      For an instant, the two unwittingly cornered Ranma-chan. "N-now, hold on a sec…" Ranma-chan tried to edge into reach of the kettle heating on the stove. The boy, thinking she was edging over toward him, moved at the same time as Happosai. Ranma-chan darted for the kettle and crashed into the boy's open arms. He closed them around her passionately, at the same time jerking the two of them out of Happosai's path. Happosai sailed through the space Ranma-chan had just occupied, and rebounded off the wall above the stove. He snatched the kettle as he passed, and tossed it into the sink where it cracked open and spilled the hot water down the drain. 

      "Good work, Ranma my boy. Now, just hold her still for me…"

      "As if I'd let a pervert like you touch my girlfriend!" the boy jeered. Pushing Ranma-chan behind him, he raised his guard to the old man. Happosai laughed, still flying right at him. As the boy opened up with his amagurikan, Happosai handed him a couple Happodaikarin and launched himself over the boy's head at Ranma-chan. She spotted the small, dark blur and reacted instantly, whipping a large pot off the pot rack. The boy managed to catch the bombs and whip around, to throw them at Happosai, as Ranma-chan lunged with the pot, scooping Happosai and the bombs out of the air. The pot slammed down on the floor, with Ranma-chan and the boy hopping on top of it to keep the old man trapped. The Happodaikarin detonated in the confined space, throwing the pair back away from each other. 

      While Happosai could have danced around Ranma all night, two Ranmas proved too much for the old man. Trapped with his own bombs, he was fortunate to survive the experience merely blasted into oblivion and charred head to foot. Without a word, the two Ranmas moved as one, raiding the refrigerator for food and bottled water and racing upstairs to collect all the lingerie, wrapping it all up in a bundle with Happi inside. The boy pulled out a small hammer, as Ranma-chan produced the magical compact mirror she'd received from the man at Mirror Mansion. The boy bopped the old man on the head, and Ranma-chan captured his gaze with the small mirror as his eyes flickered open. With a whoosh, the wizened old master vanished into exile. 

      "I knew this thing would come in handy again!"

      "At last, that pest is out of our way, Darling!" the boy snatched Ranma up in a loving embrace. Ranma-chan looked up in shock, moving into perfect position for the descending kiss. Akane appeared just in time to join Ranma in pounding the boy senseless. 

      "Bakahentai!" they chorused, stomping the poor boy underfoot. They managed to get a hold of themselves as they realized his continuing struggles were actually reflexive twitches of pain. 

      "That's two down," Akane breathed in relief. 

      Ranma-chan nodded silently and picked the boy up, carrying him over her shoulder. They dragged him to Ranma and Genma's room and laid him out on the futon. While Akane covered him with a blanket, Ranma went to her closet, grabbed some things from inside, and went downstairs for a quick bath. Copy-chan was sitting at the table, done with her bath, oblivious to Ranma-chan's passing. Male and dressed normally, Ranma returned from the bath a short while later, with a bundle of roses. Sitting across from her, he held them out silently, while Akane fumed from the door. Before she could storm in, Ranma held up his hand, holding her off. Akane puffed up, ready to bellow her usual challenge, as Copy-chan bent her head to breathe in the scent of the flowers and suddenly swooned. Akane paused, a glimmering of understanding passing through her, and raised an eyebrow. The roses must have been from Kodachi, to knock the girl unconscious like that. Akane deflated, her thoughts warring between the obvious fact that Ranma had come on to the girl, and yet in the process put her out of commission. Unable to conclude that he had done either the right or wrong thing, she simply helped drag the girl to her room. 

      "That's three," Ranma declared, wearily. 

      "I'm kind of surprised it's over already," Akane sighed, shaking her head. The two spent the next few minutes straightening up after the pandemonium. Kasumi had already cleared the table and cleaned the kitchen, while her sisters had been upstairs with the three Ranmas. Kasumi had apparently avoided all the chaos by stepping out on the upstairs porch for a bit of fresh air. Ranma sought her out to explain the destruction of one of her pots, promising to replace it the following afternoon on his way back from school. It was a small price to pay for getting rid of Happosai.

It was probably too much to hope that the clones would remain unconscious through the night. Nabiki would not have even covered a bet that the two would remain out of commission until the rest of the household was ready to turn in for the night. Naturally, Nabiki was hardly surprised to find the couple mooning over each other in the furo when she went in to take her bath. She surreptitiously snapped a few pictures and thanked the Kami that Akane had allowed Nabiki to bathe first tonight. Finishing up the last of the roll of film in her camera, she cleared her throat. 

      "It's probably a violation of some natural law that Akane did not find you in here first," she grinned, watching them both start in shock. It did not take much imagination to picture the explosion accompanying a visit from Akane. Shallow as their experiences were, the death-trap-in-a-dress with the hair-trigger temper, called Akane, had made an impression on both of them. Since her target of choice was Ranma shaped, it was not hard to classify her as a threat to their own well being. Most importantly, however, their privacy had been interrupted. Not feeling comfortable continuing their activities in Nabiki's presence, they tripped over each other to vacate the bath. Shaking her head, Nabiki shut the door after them and sighed, "Unbelievable. They're both just like him."

      Shortly, as Nabiki rinsed the soap and shampoo away, and slipped into the warmth of the furo, Kasumi was trying to complete her chores for the night. Opening the closet under the stairs, to put a couple of small boxes up for storage, she was surprised by the sight of the clones furiously ablaze with tension, struggling with nerves and apprehension to consummate a kiss. 

      "Oh my! Please excuse me," she blushed, quickly stashing the boxes on a shelf above the pair, and shutting the door. Having averted her eyes at once, she had not noticed the two jumping apart, their hair standing on end, clutching their hearts and panting in shock. Entering the living room, Kasumi cautiously approached Genma. "Mr. Saotome, I really think you need to talk to Ranma's twins."

      The panda grunted, his attention unwaveringly focused on the game with Soun. 

      "About what, Kasumi?" Ranma asked, rising from his spot at the table and facing her curiously. 

      "Ah, well…" Kasumi blushed and fidgeted uncharacteristically. 

      Ranma swallowed nervously. 

      "It's kind of startling. I mean, they are so much like you, Ranma-kun."

      Ranma opened his mouth to protest, but Akane interrupted. "What have they done this time, Oneechan?"

      "I think they are trying to make out under the stairs. Only, they don't seem to be doing a very good job of it…" Kasumi trailed off as Ranma and Akane rushed out of the room. It was hard for her to determine which of them had looked more disturbed. 

      Ranma and Akane found the closet door ajar as they approached. Looking inside, it was evident that the couple had fled after being discovered. They looked around the dojo for a while, trying to find them, but had little success. Ranma, reminded by his stomach that he had not finished dinner, wandered into the kitchen to prepare a snack. Turning on the lights, he spotted the couple in the corner, eyes closed and lips a hair away from touching. Ranma stood there for a moment in a kind of shock. With one eye twitching, he struggled with a feeling he could not describe. It was if he was standing outside of himself, trying to stop what was happening by sheer will, but at the same time feeling a perverse fascination. He could feel their chi billowing around them like a furnace. The harder they tried to close the distance, the more powerful the energy surrounding them. It was like they were trying to force two magnets together the wrong way.

      Finally he could not take it. He grabbed the girl and whipped her around to face him. "What's with you? You didn't have any problems kissing Ryouga!" he accused. The couple blinked at him in confusion.

      "Are you trying to encourage her!?" Akane pounded Ranma to the floor.

      "That's not it at all!" he raged, rebounding instantly.

      "Seemed like it to me," the clones muttered, mystified.

      "You stay out of this!" Akane and Ranma growled. 

      The couple slipped away as Akane and Ranma continued shouting at each other. Even when they slipped outside they could still hear the quarrel. The exchange quickly devolved into insults and violence, followed by a silence punctuated by Akane stomping up to her room. Unconcerned, the couple sought out a private perch on top of the house, determined to get on with "binding" as Copy-chan so eloquently put it. Just as the clones were trying to get back into the mood, Ranma turned up on the roof. Ranma took one look at the two of them and finally lost it. Whipping the compact mirror out of his shirt, he advanced on them. "That does it. If the two of you don't break it up this instant, and go to your rooms, one of you is going inside this with Happosai for the rest of the week!"

      "Ha! We know all about that trap, Ranma! You'll never trick us into it!"

      The clones took up guard positions against Ranma, waiting for him to make the first move. He bit his lip, cursing himself silently. He felt confident he could trick one of them into the mirror. As his copies, he knew exactly what they were capable of, and no one could know him better than he knew himself. He tucked the compact away and stared them both down.

      Without warning, he darted in close, a careful strategy of thrusts and feints exploded from him, as he forced the other two into motion. He knew that they would try to trump this threat by taking the compact from him. Which was why he had carefully palmed it. When they tried to retrieve it from where they thought it was, during the fight, they would open themselves up for an instant. Apart from taking advantage of these openings, he was fighting almost entirely defensively. The battle coursed between the roof, nearby trees and the compound wall. None of them attempted to leave the immediate premises. The rest of the household quickly came out onto the porch to see what the commotion was, and from the shouts, threats and insults, realized that Ranma was trying to capture one of the clones in the compact. To everyone's surprise, Ranma was the only one getting in clean hits, playing his strategy perfectly to his advantage. Unfortunately, Akane decided to jump in and help him. As she did, the clones changed their strategy subtly. 

      They had determined that Ranma had palmed the mirror. They continued their probing thrusts. Trying to end the fight before Akane got hurt, or distracted him, Ranma took the opening his clone set him up for, producing the mirror and flipping it open, lightening fast, to catch boy's gaze. The boy, prepared for this, moved his hand just before Ranma, and caught him by the wrist, twisting it to break his hold on the mirror. Catching the mirror in the same movement, he flipped it around in Ranma's face.

      "Oh man!" he barely got out, before being sucked into the mirror. 


	3. Double Crossed Signals

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Three: Double Crossed Signals

It was not uncommon for Ranma's mind to rapidly rehash events, whenever an opponent managed to out maneuver him. Akane had dragged him into the panty fight with Copy-chan. Akane had pounded him one time too many in the kitchen, sending him up to the roof where he got into another battle with the clones. Akane had jumped into the middle of his fight and caused him to act in haste, falling into Copy-kun's trap. Having been sucked into the mirror trap several times before, he was already prepared for the ambient light of the crystal faceted chamber. It was no more disorienting than stepping inside the house after an evening workout. Save for several things. What he had just left was more than just a work out. His final challenge to separate the mirror clones had ended disastrously. Thanks to that, he was barreling headlong into…

      *Splash!*

      "Hotcha! I knew you wouldn't leave your dear old master alone for too long!" the shriveled old man crowed as he dumped the contents of a water bottle on the arriving martial artist. 

      "Oh man! I really don't need this!" Ranma-chan wailed, kicking herself into overdrive to dodge the pervert's relentless glomp attack. Armed with a wealth of lingerie and his favorite "student", the old man could not contain his glee.

      "Oh, Ranma-chan! Let me help you try on these silky darlings!"

      In spite of her terror, Ranma-chan turned part of her mind to wondering how much worse things outside must have turned. With her out of the way, there was no one left in the house who could stop his twins from… It did not bear thinking on.

      On the other side of the mirror, Copy-kun came to a graceful landing, snapping the compact closed. Straightening up, head slightly bowed to hide a smirk of victory, he held up and clenched his fist. "Got him!" The rest of the household looked on as a pillar of chi spiraled around him in a halo of illumination. Naturally, this display put no one at ease. In the heat of combat, it had been impossible to keep track of which Ranma was which. As Genma attempted to douse the boy, Copy-kun jumped up, catching the bucket with his knee and spilling its contents over the panda-man. "What do you think you're doin'?"

      "Take a wild guess!" Akane shouted, picking up the garden hose and aiming at "Ranma-kun" as Nabiki helpfully turned on the faucet. The boy danced away from the sudden stream, allowing Copy-chan to take the first blast in the face. 

      "Hey! What didja do THAT for!?"

      "Quit tryin' to turn me into a girl!"

      "Quit hopping around and take it like a man!" Nabiki groused.

      Ranma-kun ignored that comment, managing to evade the stream until he was able to land on the hose, cutting off the flow with his foot. "I'm serious! I ain't goin' to bed all soakin' wet!"

      "Won't be the first time," Akane pointed out, shaking the hose to squirt the last of the water on him. He twisted artfully to evade the splash. "I'm not going to bed until I know which of you is in there!" she pointed at the compact. 

      "And give HER the opportunity let him out in the confusion?" he challenged, pointing to Copy-chan. It was an obvious point. Once "Ranma" was changed, there would be little way to tell "her" from an equally soaked Copy-chan. The clones had been given ample opportunity to converse, so he had already heard how masterfully she had exploited her resemblance to sow confusion. He did not want to resort to his final option if Akane called his bluff. Fortunately, he was not playing cards. Sagging a little, he confessed, "I really don't wanna go through all of that again. Can't we just call it a night?"

      "Besides," Nabiki put in thoughtfully, "if he IS the wrong Ranma, we'd have to let Happosai out to get the real one back."

      "Good point," Akane muttered. She dropped the end of the hose and nodded to her sister to turn off the faucet. There was more than one way to see if "Ranma-kun" was a counterfeit. "Go put this love bird to bed, and we'll clean up the mess," she clapped a hand on Copy-chan's shoulder. 

      Nabiki quirked an eyebrow. It was not hard to guess what her little sister was thinking. The real Ranma would march the copy up to bed and go to his own room. The fake, if it was he, would have to decide between revealing himself or acting like the real Ranma. _I am going to have to keep an eye on her, if she can come up with something this devious, _Nabiki thought. 

      Copy-chan gazed at Ranma-kun suspiciously, as he approached to escort her away. During the battle, the extent of her coordination with her confederate was him announcing he had a plan and her agreeing to back it up. She thought she had kept track of which boy was which. Now she was not so sure. Either way, her best option was to go along with this Ranma until she had a chance to determine who he was, and thus, what her next move should be. 

      "I'm takin' you to Akane's room. Are you gonna to give me any trouble?"

      "Are you gonna let him out of that thing?"

      "Please, Son! Don't let the Master out!" Soun wailed, kneeling before Ranma-kun and pulling on his shirt.

      "I dunno. Can't let them starve in there. Guess I haveta let 'em out in the morning, if they haven't killed each other by then," the boy rubbed the back of his head. He shrugged. "If you behave tonight, I'll let them out in the morning," he promised offhandedly. 

      For a moment, the thought of ANYONE trapped in a confined space with Happosai hung grimly over everyone's heads. Akane itched to douse the boy, just to make sure the worst had not happened. While she debated, Copy-chan had nodded in agreement with the boy's conditions and followed him meekly upstairs. After helping put things in order, a quick task since there had been no real property damage for once, Akane made a detour through the kitchen on her way to bed. As she came upstairs, with a glass of water in her hand, Copy-chan was dragging Ranma's futon into Akane's room, looking dejected. Akane peeked into the guest room and saw Ranma laying out a blanket on the hard floor. She went in to "talk" to him. As she entered the room, Nabiki stepped out from beside the door and snatched the glass from her hands. 

      "Nabiki!"

      The middle sister casually gulped the contents of the glass and handed it back to her. "Thanks, Akane!" she stepped out into the hall and jerked her head for Akane to follow her to her room. Closing the door after her little sister, Nabiki caught her with a stern look, "I know what you're thinking. I think it's a set up too, but as long as they think we believe them, they have to play their parts. It's a shame if we're right, but Ranma can take care of himself for one night. It's a small price if it allows us to sleep peacefully tonight."

      "If there was room to run in there, I might not be worried…"

      "He was a boy when he went in," Nabiki assured her sister. "Happosai might drive poor Ranma crazy, but he certainly can't molest him. He will be huddled up in his collection, staying as far away from the boy as possible. Probably."

      "I suppose you're right," Akane sagged and returned to her room. She noticed the red-head was already sprawled on the futon, fast asleep. Slipping into bed, she quickly resolved to fake sleep and keep an eye on the girl. It did not matter if the other Ranma was real or not. SHE was still trouble. 

      In a short time, a peaceful quiet descended on the Tendo Dojo. Genma and Soun quickly faded to sleep, followed shortly by Kasumi and Nabiki. Akane held out for a couple of endless hours. Ranma slipped away from her door on silent bare feet as the sound of Akane tossing and turning became evident. Slipping out the guest room window, and over the roof, he was soon at Akane's window. He was surprised to find it locked, but shrugged and pressed his hand to the window. Summoning up his confidence, he allowed his aura to flare up, watching as some of it materialized inside the glass. He sharpened his concentration, until the energy inside the room shaped itself into a tiny ball. The almost harmless, mini-mokotakabisha sped away from the window and slammed into the girl on the futon. Rather than blasting her out of bed, it passed harmlessly into her, causing her own aura to flare up with a shock.

      Jumpstarted into consciousness, the girl sat up like a bolt and stared out the window. A second ball of light shot at her from the window, and her hand rose unconsciously to catch it. It dissipated on contact as if were a ball she had summoned and tossed from one hand to the other. Again, her aura flared around her, infused with the energy of her "other half."

      Copy-chan smirked in wonder, then stood and crossed silently to the window. With great caution, she eased the glass open and swung herself out into the arms of her beloved. Her quick impulsive kiss brushed across his lips, and the two padded over the roof. Dropping down into the yard, they found a shadow behind the training hall and slipped into each other's arms. She licked her lips, savoring the first kiss they had managed since they had been broken apart on the train. Looking up into Copy-kun's eyes, in heated anticipation of another, she noticed that strange resistance had suddenly sprung up between them again. The same look of frustration crossed their faces, as they leaned in with determination. The mixed emotions fed into their auras, causing them to clash with a palpable resistance. 

      "What is going on?" the boy frowned and pulled back.

      "I don't understand. Why are you pushing me away?"

      "I'm not!"

The moon was high and almost full in the skies of Nerima. The eternally lost boy was grateful for the light, since he was forced to walk through the night to make up for that detour in Osaka. He was fairly certain he had wandered into Kyoto, as he paused to reorient himself once more for Tokyo. Glancing up at the sky, fixing on an arbitrary grouping of stars, he pumped his fist into his palm with assurance. Without a doubt, that way led to Nerima! As he raced the other way down the street, following a disturbingly familiar wall, he stumbled through a powerful, and familiar aura.

      "Ano! That was Ranma! I am sure of it!" he screeched to a halt. "I wonder what he's doing in Kyoto?" He puzzled that imponderable for a moment before grinning, "This is my chance to pay him back without anyone around to interfere!" Thinking back to that horrifying scene a few days ago, a sickly green and purple aura pulsed around him. There he had been, sitting on a bench awaiting his date with Akari, when that perverted transsexual had jumped on him and kissed him like there was no tomorrow. Even when his nemesis had been under the influence of the koi fishing rod, he had not managed to disgrace Ryouga so! "This time, I really AM going to kill him for the hell he has put me through!"

      Unfortunately, his quarry was not exactly in sight. Ryouga tried to compose himself as he slipped carefully up the wall. He did not dare attack until he had Ranma in his sights. As he cleared the top of the wall, he remembered the lame excuse Ranma had come up with to explain his actions. The very notion of a cursed mirror that spat out perverted copies of who ever looked into it was ludicrous. If that was true, he criticized, peering down from the top of the wall, why had Ryouga not seen Ranma and this alleged duplicate together, like he was seeing now? Even if such nonsense were true, knowing Ranma, he would have been hiding behind the bushes molesting his female half like the two Ranma's before him. No chance that pervert would let such a cute girl have a chance at Ryouga!

      As his eyes narrowed in on the boy in that embrace, targeting the lethal bandannas whirling in his right hand, he suddenly felt a twinge of recognition. "You sick, perverted bastard! Cheating on Akane with YOURSELF!!? PREPARE TO DIE!!!" Ryouga hurtled forward, in the wake of the iron cloth shuriken, readying his umbrella in his other hand.

      Too shocked to prepare for the attack, the couple was only saved by the force of their strange repulsion throwing them away from each other the instant they were distracted from trying to overcome it. The rigid bandannas embedded themselves in the outer wall of the training hall, as the couple rolled to their feet on either side. 

      "What didja do THAT for?" they shouted in unison.

      "Shut up! It's time for you to die!"

      "Uh… who?" the boy asked, shocked by this intrusion.

      "What do you mean, 'Who?'"

      "Who do you mean, 'Die'?" the boy pointed between himself and Copy-chan.

      "Don't I know you from somewhere?" the girl asked timidly.

      "Who is he?" the boy asked, frowning.

      This actually stopped Ryouga for a second. Gaping in sheer disbelief he roared, "What is this!? Have you been playing with Shampoo's shampoo? I've been through hell because of you! Both of you!"

      Copy-chan stiffened at this, "You're that guy I kissed! Geez, I'm not THAT bad!"

      "YOU KISSED HER!? And you're COMPLAININ' about it?" the boy slid into an aggressive stance. "Oh, that does it. You've gotta die!"

      "Bring it on, little girl!" Ryouga matched him.

      "You asked for it," Copy-chan fumed, catching him off guard with a roundhouse kick to the jaw. Ryouga staggered back a hair and glared at her. 

      "I was talkin' to him!"

      "Who are you calling a girl!" Copy-kun lashed out with a series of lightening kicks and punches. The first barrage slipped through the lost boy's guard, forcing him back a step. "Man, you're tough!" Copy-kun noted in surprise. Even Ranma would have tried to evade those blows, but the stranger just blocked them cold. 

      "You really have forgotten me, haven't you, Ranma?" Ryouga looked vaguely surprised. "Not that it matters, I am still going to kill you!"

      "I don't know what your problem is, bandanna boy, but you picked the wrong couple to mess with!" Copy-kun warned. Copy-chan nodded in agreement. Without a word, the couple slipped into a devastating, coordinated attack. In an instant, Ryouga found himself at the center of a whirlwind of unstoppable blows. Even with his incredible toughness, he was feeling the blows raining down upon him. He had not counted on a copy of Ranma being as good as Ranma. He closed his guard and waited for an opening, a cloud of gloom settling around him as he realized the folly of his assault. Finally, an opening presented itself.

      "SHISHIHOKODAN!" he roared, releasing a massive chi-blast into Copy-chan's midsection. She flew back and became imbedded in the wall surrounding the compound with a resounding boom. 

      The noise roused everyone from their beds. Akane sat bolt upright and noticed at once that Copy-chan's futon was unoccupied. She raced to the window and threw it open. The distant sound of fighting revealed that the commotion was taking place around at the front of the house, by the training hall. Racing out her door, she almost collided with her sisters in the hallway. Dodging past them, she flew down the stairs and out the front door, followed at a distance by her family and Genma. 

      In the yard, she saw Ranma and Ryouga whirling around each other as Copy-chan limped towards them with murder in her eyes. Before Akane could do anything, Ryouga continued in his derisive rant. 

      "I can't believe you'd do THAT with a copy of yourself!" Ryouga sneered. "It's bad enough that you always cheat on Akane, but doin' it with yourself!? You make me sick!"

      "Who are you to judge m…" Copy-kun collapsed under the concussion of Akane's mallet. 

      "RAAANMAAAAA! I can't BELIEVE you!" Akane was pissed. At last, Ranma had shown his true stripes, getting rid of the male copy and molesting the female copy himself! It did not even occur to her that Ryouga could not know there was now a male copy of Ranma. Copy-kun barely managed to twitch out of the way as she reared back and brought the hammer down again.

      Before Ryouga could take advantage of this interruption, Copy-chan stopped an arm's length behind him and thrust forward with an expanding ball of energy. The devastating chi attack was released as her palms hit him in the middle of his back, "MOKOTAKABISHA!"

      Ryouga flew to the opposite end of the compound, his body making an impression similar to the one Copy-chan had climbed out of on the other side of the front yard. Copy-chan raced after him, charging up for another blast, as Copy-kun lurched off in the same direction to escape from Akane's wrath. 

      "You can't run away, Ranma!" she raced after the couple, determined to help Ryouga fulfill his oft-repeated pledge. Ryouga, peeling himself out of the wall, took one look at the oncoming traffic and bolted down the side yard. As he barreled forward, he spotted the moon reflected in the koi-pond and skidded to a halt. Akane was right behind him. There was no way he could safely pass that water in a combat situation. Turning around, he raced into the teeth of the clones' combined attacks. The couple was so surprised at his sudden charge that they barely managed to dodge his lunging thrust. The umbrella's tip caught at Copy-kun's shirt and ripped the front open. A small, flat, oval object flew out of the torn garment to land at Akane's feet. 

      "Hey! That was my favorite shirt! That was my ONLY shirt!"

      "What is it with you and your shirts!? Pay attention to the fight, sissy!"

      Akane threw herself into a flip, to avoid stepping on the mirror, recognizing it instantly for what it was. Carefully, she turned and crouched to pick it up. Behind her, as she had turned her back to retrieve the fragile mirror, the fighting slowly advanced upon the pond. In spite of his best efforts, the couple was hemming Ryouga in, forcing him back to the waters of doom. With each step, his panic grew. Akane was hardly paying attention as she turned the trap over in her hands suspiciously. She flipped it open, and bit her lip. 

      From behind her there was a loud splash. 

      Akane turned and looked, seeing both boy-type Ranma and girl-type Ranma regaining their feet in the pond, and turning to peer for their opponent in the dark depths of the pond.

      "I knew it!" Akane cried, quickly patting on the back of the mirror.

      "Gyaaaah! Keepawaykeepawaykeepaway!" Ranma-chan was screaming as she plopped onto the grass, followed by Happosai. The girl had rebounded and taken flight before the old man could land on her bare back. Her tattered clothing streamed around her like so much tangled thread clutched tight to her private regions with white knuckled fists. 

      "You can't dodge forever, Ranma-chan! Just try on one set! Please!"

      "Don't TOUCH me! Try one more time and I'll kill you!"

      Akane stood there in horror, helpless as she envisioned the last few hours of Ranma trapped alone with Happosai. "Wh… where did he get cold water in there?" she asked in shocked disbelief. 

      The clones stepped up beside her, holding a struggling, familiar black pig in a combined grip. "We threw in some food and bottled water when we trapped the old man in there," the boy commented idly. 

      "Hey! What are you doing with P-chan!?"

      "Huh? Dunno, the little bugger was swimming in the pond."

      "Where's Ryouga?" The little pig froze in horror at Akane's question.

      "Who?"

      "The boy you two were fighting."

      "Oh, him. Apparently he fled in terror from our superior skill, while we were trying to get out of the pond." The little pig fumed, and began scratching and biting at the couple. 

      "Oh, here. Give him to me. He hates Ranma, so of course he doesn't like to be held by either of you," Akane reached over and took the piglet into her arms. Though shaking in rage, P-chan gradually relaxed into her grip, a funny look in his eyes. 

      Ranma came around the opposite corner of the house, having run a complete lap through the yard. "Excuse me," Copy-chan said, picking the mirror from Akane's grasp and hefting a bundle under her other arm. As Ranma-chan whizzed by, Copy-chan held out the bag of lingerie, food and water, in one hand, pulling the front of her shirt open with the other. "Hey! Old man! Look at what I have for you!"

      "Sweetie-pie honey-pot!" Happosai swerved, coming in for a landing on Copy-chan's chest. At the last minute, she let the cloth fall away from her right hand, revealing the open mirror and Happosai's startled expression. "Drat! Not again…" Still, as his body was sucked once more into the mirror, his outstretched hand closed on the bag of loot and dragged it in with him. 

      "It's almost not fair," Copy-kun sighed.

      Ranma-chan, rising up from where she had cowered behind him, thumped him on the head. "I have seen hell because of you!"

      "Oh please! Don't start. I've already heard it!"

      "But you haven't heard the end of it!"

      Akane cleared her throat. While the clones turned to look at her, Ranma snagged the mirror from Copy-chan's grasp. The two girls glared at each other for a moment, and then Copy-kun draped the remains of his shirt over Ranma's shoulders. 

      "Sorry, it's kind of torn up. Still, it's in better shape than what you were… er… wearing." Ranma-chan looked at him in surprise as he stepped carefully away from her. As her look turned suspicious, he broke down and confessed, "I… er… um… I forgot that he had water in there."

      In a sense, it was an apology, and remained unexpected. Akane gave them all a funny look, shook her head, and went back into the house. The trio stood baffled, wondering what she had been about to say. Shrugging, the couple turned to Ranma-chan as she cleared her own throat. Holding up the compact, she prepared herself for the next battle with resignation. 

      "Now. Once again, while I appreciate you getting Happosai off my back, there remains the problem of both of you."

      "You wouldn't put us in there with HIM, would you?"

      "If YOU had a curse, I'd be tempted," she glared at the boy.

      "I said I was sorry!"

      "No you didn't. But that's not the point. Are you gonna follow the rules, or are you gonna force me to make more threats?"

      The two sulked, and Ranma-chan sighed, opening up the mirror. They stopped her just as she was about to pat it on the back.

      "What do you think you are doing!?"

      "I can't put one of you in there with him, so I gotta let him out first."

      "You're serious about putting one of us in there?"

      "I can't let you two cause any more problems for me."

      "Then you might as well put both of us in there," they sighed.

      Ranma-chan looked at them in disbelief. She opened her mouth to explain that was hardly a solution when she suddenly deflated. Turning to reenter the house, she surrendered. "If that's all that matters to you then fine. Sleep in the dojo. Have a blast." She stopped at the door and bowed her head. "I never liked people tellin' me what I have to do. I guess I think you are both a part of me, and that I have an obligation to control you, 'cuz a martial artist has to have self control." Her hand went to the doorjamb. "I don't really know what you are, but you're both made from me, by the same spirit. If you ask me, it don't seem like you've really found someone ELSE to love. It's just… wrong." With that, she slipped inside in a cloud of dejection.

      The couple stared after her, disturbed by her parting comments. 


	4. The Shadow of Incest

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Four: The Shadow of Incest

The sound of crickets filled the night, accompanied by an occasional breath of chimes from random, Nerima yards. The night seemed almost shocked by the absence of an elderly voice crowing the delights of his panty fetish. The moon flirted with a sheet of clouds, its luminous body reflected in the koi pond at the Tendo Dojo. A young couple, in love with the idea of being in love, stood in shocked silence as Ranma-chan's parting words rang inside their minds. The forces that shaped and moved them paused in their incessant demand for action and romantic exploration, as circumstances provoked thought. Once begun, a host of unasked and half pondered questions began to surface to fuel this uncommon fire. Unable to master their private thoughts, they inevitably turned to each other with looks of confused trepidation. 

      Their mouths opened and shut, but words were not forthcoming.

      Copy-kun stood there in his undershirt, studying the girl he "loved" and struggling with the ill worded logic of Ranma-chan's accusation. _"I don't really know what you are, but you're both made from me, by the same spirit. If you ask me, it don't seem like you've really found someone ELSE to love. It's just… wrong."_ There was a problem, however. How could he challenge the assertion that she was not "someone else" when he was not entirely sure who he was? 

      Copy-chan studied him in turn, her mind drifting over the things she had learned the previous week. Being a copy of Ranma had not occurred to her as a reason not to pursue the handsome martial artist. His disinterest and affection for that Akane girl, while both suspect in her mind, had hurt her. The emergence of a copy of him had seemed a perfect solution. The man she desired, motivated by the same desires as herself. In spite of having listened to the old man from the mansion tell the story of the young noblewoman, who haunted the mirror and stole reflections of people to fulfill her life's dream, she had not really identified with that ghost. It was more like she was a new person; awakening from a coma with needs and desires that could not be denied. 

      "Are we really the same person?" the boy asked her, deferring to her greater experience. 

      "The same person as who?"

      "How should I know?"

      "Exactly," she sighed. "I don't feel like a dead noble woman. Do you?"

      "Are you kidding? I don't feel like any kind of woman!"

      "What do you feel?"

      "I dunno. Lonely, I guess. Very, very lonely."

      "Desperate."

      "Yeah," he shrugged. 

      "What do you want?"

      "I… I want someone to love me. I want someone to care."

      "Do you love me?"

      "Uh… that is… I… ah…"

      "Do you even know what love is?"

      "Er. Not really. I like you. I really like you… It's like…"

      "It's like we have so much in common, it should be easy to find love," she finished his thought. He nodded and she continued. "I feel the same. I think I love you, but I am not really sure what that means. I dunno what to think, or what to do. I just can't… let anything get in the way."

      She frowned for a while, while he moved over to the porch and sat down. Talking to him helped her think things through. Much better than chasing things around in her head. At least, when she could pin down what to say. It was interesting. She had come into the world with a whole lot of feelings, but not a lot of ideas. She blushed at the memory of her first attempts at boy chasing. It had seemed obvious at the time; she wanted love, she set out to find a boy and "make love". Her mind had jumped instantly to forming that strategy, though the ideas that dropped into her thoughts had been rather vague and uninformative. Still, it seemed logical enough that love did not just happen. It was equally rational that you had to find someone and "make" it. 

      Unfortunately, the "making love" part seemed to be a lot harder than she could have imagined. Ranma had shown her that chasing people tended to make them run away, so you had to sort of lure them in. When she decided to "make love" with Ranma, she stumbled across the notion that she was supposed to take him to bed and sleep with him, but strangely, that had not made him love her even a bit. It was all so frustrating. Because of Akane's interference, she had only chased Ranma for a couple of days, before pretending to back off and planning to abduct him. For a number of reasons, it was necessary to get her "lover" alone to properly make love, but she had little success getting anyone alone. 

      Now there was another Ranma, just as determined as she to make love, and they were finally alone. Unfortunately, she was still pretty clueless how to proceed. Ranma's friends, Hiroshi and Daisuke, had given her lots of advice and suggestions, like kissing and hugging. Her mind had come up with a notion of what those activities required, but some of their more enthusiastic suggestions had fallen into a gap in her mind. The two boys assured her that when the time was right; her body would know what to do. She was eager to test that theory, but the objections of everyone in the house had disturbed her. Why everyone acted like making love was a bad thing, defied her. 

      It all seemed to hinge on this notion that Copy-kun and herself were somehow the same person. Asking herself if it was wrong for a person to love herself, she got the strong feeling that it was not. In fact, her intuition told her that a person was supposed to love herself. Thus, if he was some part of her, she ought to love him. She quickly explained her thoughts to him. 

      He considered them for a moment. "So, we might be the same person. We ought to love each other if we are the same person, but it's not the same as if weren't the same person, cuz we still wouldn't have anyone who loved us," he summarized. "I still don't see why everyone is acting all weird about this, though. I mean, since we're not sure what love is, we have to figure out how to make it to find out. It'd be a lot easier to learn how to make love if we help each other, if we're the same person or not."

      "Right, cuz once we know how to make love, we can make love with anyone and never have to be alone," Copy-chan nodded. If there had been anyone awake to hear this conversation, they would have been peeling themselves out of a face-plant at this point and foaming at the mouth. Copy-chan joined her counterpart on the porch and sat down thoughtfully. After a moment, she snapped her fingers. "That's it!"

      "What?" he turned to look at her expectantly

      "I think I know why they're all so upset."

      "Go on," he scooted around and knelt facing her.

      "Well, they all think we're the same person, but everyone else is just… well… half, y'know? Even Ranma, who is a guy and a girl, can only be one at a time. So, people who want to make love always have to find someone else. But we have each other!"

      "So?"

      "So, they're jealous!"

      "Do you think so?" he looked thoughtful. 

      "Yeah! I mean, because it would be so much easier for us."

      "What do you mean, easier?"

      "When I was alone here, it was really hard to get a guy alone. I mean, if you go after them, they get scared and run away, or they want some other girl instead of you… er me. Obviously, you're not a girl! You're a hunk!"

      "And you're a babe!"

      "But the point is," she continued, as he took her hands in his, "I bet they don't know any more about making love than we do. It's gotta rub 'em the wrong way to have to figure it out the hard way, and see the two of us can figure it all out on our own!"

      "And that's why they keep interfering!" light dawned behind his eyes.

      "Yep!"

      They considered this for a moment. In quiet voices they discussed how to proceed, now that they knew what the problem was. They quickly boiled down the little they knew about making love; get partner alone, kiss them and hug them, take them to bed, sleep with them, and their bodies would know what to do next. It did not explain why trying this before made them both feel funny inside and so incredibly nervous. Considering what they had discovered, they would not be able to ask anyone to explain the strange reactions. In fact, just talking about it was making them both feel somewhat flustered. 

      "Maybe we're just trying too hard," Copy-chan suggested. 

      Copy-kun released her sweating hands from his and scooted back. He had been struggling for several moments to even suggest that they go out to the dojo and begin practicing. Having a hard time just putting the idea in words, he could not help but agree with her. He was having to try too hard. 

      "Maybe you're right. If we're not really thinking about it, it's easy. But all these interruptions, and… stuff… got me all stressed out."

      "We've got a whole week to figure this out," Copy-chan reminded. "Let's not push it. We don't have to master this tonight. It might be a good idea to… wait for things to happen on their own. Besides," she shrugged, "if we're not constantly trying to make love, the others might relax their guard a bit."

      "Sure." Copy-kun nodded. If everyone else backed off, there would be a lot less tension. "It's kinda late, anyway. I sure could use the sleep." With that said, the couple got up and went inside the house. Since they agreed to be discrete, even if the word never occurred to them, it seemed best to return to separate rooms and pretend nothing happened. For the most part, nothing had. In the upstairs hall, they hugged each other goodnight, and went separate ways.

      There was a little commotion as P-chan threw a fit over Copy-chan sneaking into Akane's room. Ranma-chan collided with Copy-kun as she rushed out to see what the noise was about. 

      "What the hell are you two doin' now?" she complained, recovering her wits.

      "Goin' to bed. What's with that pig?"

      "Bweee!"

      "Yaaaaaa! It bit me!"

      "Stop teasing P-chan!"

      "Ryouga!" Ranma-chan burst into Akane's room, ready to pound the piglet. 

      Copy-kun followed her in and stared at the sight of the little pig bounding around the room, Copy-chan in hot pursuit. Akane was standing in the middle of the room yelling at "Ranma" until Ranma-chan tapped her on the shoulder. 

      "Can you please stop that pig before the whole house wakes up?"

      "Why are you all barging into my room in the middle of the night!?"

      "Cuz I am supposed to be sleeping in here," Copy-chan complained, giving up the chase. "I wouldn't have made a sound if that baka pig hadn't tried to bite my arm off!"

      "What did you do to him!?"

      Copy-chan stared at Akane in disbelief. Holding out her wounded forearm, she deadpanned, "I bled on him a little in retaliation."

      Copy-kun took one look at the blood trickling down his better half's arm and clenched his fist. "I'll kill him!"

      "Stop that!" Copy-chan commanded, as the room temperature dropped noticeably. "It's just a stupid animal. I'm all right. But I'm not gonna sleep in here if that thing is gonna to be on the loose," she turned a wounded glare on Akane. 

      It finally penetrated Akane's righteous anger that her sweet pet had struck out at an "innocent" party. Blushing and stammering she turned to the girl, "I… I'm so sorry. I told you P-chan hates Ranma. He obviously can't tell the difference between you. I should have penned him in the wash room or something, I just… didn't think you'd be back tonight."

      Ranma-chan looked at the clones and rubbed her head, "I guess I am with Akane on that one. What are you two doin' up here? I though you were gonna sleep in the dojo."

      The clones looked at each other and sighed. Copy-chan spoke for them, "We sorta decided… we don't wanna cause so much trouble. We need some time to think about who we are and what this all means, so…" She shrugged. "For now, it's better to just follow the rules, separate beds and all that, y'know?"

      Akane and Ranma stood bug-eyed.

      "Ah, sure," Ranma-chan finally said. 

      P-chan had stopped bounding around, as the tone in the room turned serious, staring from one Ranma to another in abject confusion. While everyone was too stunned to pay attention to him, he slipped out of the room; desperate to escape the cruel fates that allowed three Ranma's to exist in the same world. Everyone shuffled to their respective beds as the pig trotted dejectedly down the stairs and into the washroom. His intention had been to leave the house altogether, but he took advantage of a source of hot water while it was present. Ryouga then slipped into a spare set of clothes Kasumi had fished out of the pond and washed for him, after an earlier visit. For most of the night, he wandered through the house, seeking a door leading outside. 

The chill morning air had a bite to it as Ranma-chan waded out of the koi pond, lugging Ryouga's heavy pack and abandoned clothes. In spite of the fact that she would sleep through the day if given half a chance, she was accustomed to early mornings. How her old man ever managed to wake early enough to stage predawn ambushes and training sessions was beyond comprehension. Ranma believed her father was a closet morning person, faking at being a heavy sleeper when it was convenient, but always able to start trouble before breakfast if it suited him. Not that such was a case this morning. Neither the cold water nor the stunning glory of the world resurrected under a crystal blue sky was enough to shake the memory of her awakening.

      It was her own fault for going back to bed in girl form. At the time, she had just been too tired to think about it. Also, it had been cold sleeping in a blanket on the bare floor, so it was not that surprising that the warm body next to her had not awakened her. On many a training trip, cuddling up to whatever warm body was available meant surviving the night. Only this time it wasn't her father. No amount of excuses would make her forget how nice it had felt to wake up in that warm embrace; her body snuggled perfectly into Copy-kun's larger form. No amount of disgust would change the fact that she had lain there for almost half an hour, drowsing comfortably beside him, before realization hit. 

      Shivering at the remembered horror, she stalked inside, depositing the damp items in the washroom. She turned reluctantly away from the bathroom door. Because of her explosion, Genma and Copy-kun had woken up in the garden, after being hurtled out the window. Genma had frowned and announced that, since they were all awake, they might as well start the day with a training session. Hence, bathing had to wait.

      Kasumi had put a pot of water on to heat while Ranma-chan fetched Ryouga's things. Naturally, the eldest Tendo daughter had been awake already. Ranma-chan carried a towel into the dinning room, picked up the kettle, and stepped outside to douse herself. The hot water was pleasant after wading in the pond, and he toweled himself off quickly before the liquid could cool. Genma and Copy-kun were out in the grass sparring. Genma wanted to evaluate the clone's abilities personally, before pitting the two boys against each other. As Ranma-kun watched, an eerie sensation came over him. The sensation of watching himself, as it were, did not displace his intense desire to pound the other boy into a coma for "cuddling" with him through the night. 

      It did not help that Genma spoke and acted the same as he would with Ranma. "You're too slow, Boy! Ha Ha Haaa! What'samatter, Boy? Don't think you can keep up with the old man?"

      "What kinda move is that!? Hell's Cradle? That's just sick!"

      "You will never defeat me, Boy!"

      "Defeat you? You're psychotic! I should commit you!"

      "Empty words, Boy! Oooff!"

      *Splash!*

      "Growff!"

      "Is that all you've got, Panda-Man?"

      "Grf rowf ra ruffa fouf!"

      "Yeah! Back at you, Old man!"

      Ranma stood and tossed the kettle to his father, as Genma waved a sign in his direction. [Okay, Son. Your turn!]

      Ranma hopped out onto the grass and went through a series of limbering moves, as he squared off with his duplicate. Copy-kun was already warmed up and feeling aggressive after sparring with Genma. Ranma let him take the offensive, warming up as the battle progressed. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Copy-chan slipping out onto the porch to watch the fight. After facing off against his clone the night before, Ranma had been giving some serious thought to how to deal with himself as an opponent. In this one respect, the Cursed Mirror had done him a favor. He might never find a more even match than this, an opponent who could match him move for move perfectly. With one exception; Copy-kun had no curse, no fear of water. With this reminder, the temper he had choked down since awakening boiled up inside him. As Ranma warmed up, and began to take the offensive, amagurikan met amagurikan, chi attacks passed through each other and splashed harmlessly against their targets, and two boys wove and twisted in a dance of astonishing precision. 

      As would be expected, the fight was fought as much in the air as on the ground, crisscrossing over the pond, up along the roof, up and down the compound walls. It was a battle of wit and control, as each boy restrained his attacks to sure hits, clean kicks, and bulls-eye mokotakabishas. Neither one could set up the other for a Hiryu Shoten Ha, since the instant one went cold with the soul-of-ice technique, the other would chill out in response. The moment one opened up to attack, the other penetrated the hole created with a counter attack. Genma had forbidden them from using his secret techniques, so the dojo would not suffer the consequences of their use, but even without the Umisen-ken and the Yamasen-ken, the conflict was stunning. 

      It gradually became clear that Ranma was coming out ahead of his double. He was taking hard blows just for the opportunity to deliver punishment to Copy-kun. Akane wandered out and sat beside Copy-chan, stunned by the sight of Ranma going at it so hard.

      "Wow. I haven't seen him like this since Mikado kissed him."

      "What's that supposed to mean?" Copy-chan asked.

      "I guess it means he's going to win. I wonder what the pervert did to him?"

      "What do you mean?"

      "Ranma's pissed off. Can't you see that?"

      "Oh crap! We've gotta stop them!"

      "Good luck!"

      Ranma was at that moment risking a kick in the gut to deliver a kick to his double's crotch. Copy-kun had to take it on his thigh, whipping his own strike out of line to avoid it. Ranma closed for a series of kidney punches, taking an elbow in the ribs in exchange. He accepted a solid blow to his jaw to get in a shot at Copy-kun's throat. In each exchange, delivering just a hair more punishment than he received, but his opponent had to take the shots he offered, or whirl around in the mad dance just to keep out of Ranma's reach. He wasn't losing this battle of attrition because Ranma was better, however. He simply did not have the fury to match him. The best he could do was lure him closer to the pond. Unfortunately, Ranma did not care if he changed into a girl in the fight. 

      As Copy-kun positioned them for a mid-air pass over the pond, he offered Ranma the perfect opening. Ranma obligingly soared into the other boy's kick, with a cross-counter kick to the jaw and an elbow into his groin. The double blow killed their combined momentum. Copy-kun's low hand block had taken the brunt of the elbow strike, so he was not gasping in gut wrenching agony as the two plummeted into the pond. 

      Genma, having observed intently, raised his eyebrows when the pair surfaced. While noting that Ranma-chan took instant advantage of her superior speed and agility to thrash the boy, fighting entirely within Copy-kun's guard, Genma focused most of his attention on the fact that her opponent was still a boy. His thoughts turned inward as he waved to Copy-chan, "Your turn, Girl. The boy has earned a break."

      Akane blinked, wide eyed, as the other red-head entered the fray. Ranma had beaten the boy to the ground, dropped down to straddle his hips and pound his head into the grass. She did not dare ask herself what could have upset Ranma-chan that much. Whatever the answer was, she was certain she did not want to know it. 

      Copy-chan ploughed into Ranma-chan, setting the pummeled boy free. Akane stood and went out to drag him out of the yard. From the look on Copy-chan's face, she had entered the fight with as much of a temper as Ranma-chan. Akane realized she probably should not have mentioned what could set Ranma off. The two girls fought a slightly faster, more agile version of the fight just finished, with Ranma-chan on the receiving end of controlled rage. 

      "What were you two doing last night!?"

      "I'm not gonna talk about it!"

      "I'll make you!"

      "A girl like you!? Don't make me laugh!"

      "Ha, ha! I am a girl like you!"

      Not a bright move, on Copy-chan's part, since that seemed to rouse Ranma-chan's anger to new heights. Akane sighed, and shook her head in wonder. Normally, Ranma was pretty consistent about not fighting girls, but with Copy-chan, he never seemed to hold back. Akane remembered the bizarre sight of Ranma-chan malleting Copy-chan in her room, the first time she saw them together. Technically, that had been three impossible things at once. Only in Nerima could reality survive such an event. 

      Akane realized she had not been following the argument, when Copy-chan reeled back from something Ranma-chan said, and then flew off out of the yard in a blind rage. Ranma-chan stared off after her, and then walked into the house without a word. Akane got up to follow her, while Genma slipped inside to join Soun and Nabiki at the table.

      "Ranma? What happened? Why did she take off like that?"

      "I told her what she wanted to know."

      "What did she want to know?" Akane dreaded the answer.

      Ranma did not reply. She did not know how. She was getting over being cuddled in her sleep, and had even relented and told Copy-chan to make her shut up. The girl's reaction disturbed her. She wished she could remember what she had said exactly, because she was afraid she might have given the other girl the wrong idea. Why did she swallow her rage? Why did she run off? What did she think happened? 

      "I don't think she understood me, Akane," Ranma-chan ventured hesitantly.

      "Ranma! What did you say to her?" Akane was beginning to steam. 

      "Akane. I did not do anything. I can't tell you if you're going to get upset."

      Ranma looked too worried for Akane to maintain her temper. Kasumi paused while setting the breakfast, looking up in instant maternal concern at the sound of distress in the part-time girl's voice. Akane took a deep breath, carefully locking her temper away. She remembered Nabiki's warning about letting Copy-kun sleep in the same room as Ranma. She had seen for herself how the boy reacted to Ranma-chan, last night in the kitchen. In a low, shaking voice, she dared to ask, "What did he do to you, Ranma?"

      "He… he… slept with me," she responded in a small voice. 

      If the back of Akane's head could have blown out from sheer horror, it would have. The expression on her face alone was enough to alarm Ranma. She began to wave her hands. 

      "Akane? Hello? It's not like he hurt me, or anything. It wasn't as bad as with Pops. I mean, he always ends up crushing me an' all, and I only really got hurt the first… time…" Ranma-chan faltered as other faces turned toward them from the table, shock equal to Akane's on their faces. Soun had his hands around Genma's throat, and Genma seemed to be turning purple, waving a sign frantically, even though he was not in panda form. 

      [It's all lies!!! I never! How could you stab your old man like this, Ranma!?]

      Akane's face had progressed to a leer of unspeakable horror. Kasumi, for whom "sheer and utter horror" consisted of a concerned, worried expression, was walking up to Ranma-chan, wringing a towel in her hand. 

      "Oh, Ranma-kun! Your own father…" she began.

      "No, no, no! Stop right there," Ranma backpedaled. "Whatever you're all thinking, you have it totally wrong!" Once again, the people around her had turned into virtual aliens with heads full of incomprehensible thoughts. "Pops never actually cuddled with me! It was only with Copy-kun!"

      "C… cu… cuddled?" Akane stammered. 

      Ranma-chan began pulling at her hair. She had told them everything, the truth, but somehow that only made everything worse. What else could she say to make them understand? "It's not that bad! I sorta overreacted! Really. I mean, it was actually kind of nice. I just lay there and enjoyed it for a half an hour before I realized we were both really guys!" Around the room, people's hands had clapped to their faces while their mouths and eyes gaped in unconscious imitation of "The Scream". Even Nabiki was gawking in sheer disbelief. 

      "Half an hour?" Nabiki blinked, "I would have thought only fifteen minutes, tops," she felt genuinely disturbed. That bad an estimate could cost her a fortune in a betting pool!

      "I wasn't TRYING to wait that long!" Ranma-chan continued to throw protests and explanations into a conversation that had long since taken off without her. "It's just, well, I was a girl, you know? And the way our bodies fit together and all, made me feel so good I couldn't think clearly. I'da killed him if he'd tried to do that when I was a guy!" 

      Akane finally could not take it. The shock gave way to a flood of rage. "I'm gonna kill him! Both of them!"

      Ranma flinched. Genma, by this point, was gasping for breath and edging toward the open door. Soun had released him to grasp his own face. The Tendo patriarch, like the rest of his family, stared in disbelief at how relatively calmly Ranma-chan delivered this series of Earth-shattering revelations. Ranma-chan reached out to stop Akane from advancing on Genma without thinking, struggling to comprehend how everyone could be so shocked at hearing that a couple of people had huddled under the covers with her for warmth on cold nights. 

      Akane stared at Ranma-chan, looking up from the restraining hand to meet her worried blue eyes. Ranma was clearly afraid that Akane was going to carry out her threat. She looked ready to stop Akane from trying. _Why? After all that had happened, why?_ "Do… do you love them? Your father, I mean… and your… copy?" Akane bit her lip.

      "If I say no, you'll kill them? I don't think so," Ranma-chan put some steel in her voice. "That's my father, Akane. Of course I love him. Yeah, he's used and abused me from time to time, but he also raised me. As for Copy-kun," she shrugged, "okay, maybe I don't love him. But he's still a part of me, sort of. Yeah, he's obsessed with my girl side, and he's free of my curse. You don't need to kill him, though. I mean I already punished him. Besides, I gave him the opportunity, so it's partly my own fault. It's not that big a deal. Just forget it."

      "WHAT!?" Akane almost lost it at that. _Gave him the opportunity!!! _her mind raged. Unfortunately, there was no arrogance in Ranma at making this statement. No pride. Instead there was shock, shame and a startling vulnerability. Her desire to hand out punishment ached for release, but Ranma-chan was utterly open and defenseless. Lost and confused. "You let him do this to you? How could you do that?"

      "I didn't ask for it!" Ranma-chan spit, looking disgusted. "What I meant was, my guard was down. I never imagined he'd do that… I mean, I don't think of myself as a girl, and sometimes I don't notice what form I am in, until something happens to remind me. This time I just… didn't remember until it was too late," Ranma sank into herself. She could not believe it. She had made it a point never to talk about her curse, how it affected her mind and feelings. She clamped her mouth shut. If she did not stop, right now, things might come out that she had not even dared say to herself. "Please, just let it go."

      "You want to go on as if this never happened?"

      "Nothin' happened!"

      "I can't forget that easily!"

      "Geez, rub it in my face then! Does that make you happy?"

      Akane stared at her, unable to let this just blow over.

      "Can I please just go and take a bath and talk about all this later? I'm still dirty from last night, then all of this stuff this morning. Can you wait that long before killing anyone?"

      After several long moments, Akane nodded. 

      As Ranma sighed and stalked off to the furo, Akane and the others gathered around the table in stunned silence. Genma had stopped retreating from the room when Ranma spoke up to defend him, and he had been so touched that Akane had more than enough time to collar him and push him to his seat at the table. One look in her eyes, and Genma had slumped down. His future daughter-in-law was ready to kill him, as soon as she had permission. Until then, she was on him like white on rice. Everyone was so focused on their inner most thoughts, no one noticed as Copy-kun regained consciousness and slipped off towards the furo as well. 

  



	5. The Furo Fiasco

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Five: The Furo Fiasco

The morning of a typical school day in Nerima saw many waves of activity. First, in the half-light of dawn, the streets and sidewalks were filled by salary men and office ladies trickling from their homes and apartments toward the train station. After the zombie migration, came the college students and local entrepreneurs. Many shops and eateries opened early to draw in the retiree crowd, conditioned to rise with the sun, but no longer forced to migrate to the inner city. The early hours saw a bustle of activity in garden plots throughout the ward. Housewives were busy in their kitchens, preparing meals to start children on their way to school. But none of this really registered on two oblivious youths sprinting headlong through the streets with a good head of steam built up. 

      Ryouga was berating himself, lamenting the cruel whims of fate, and ranting about how Ranma Saotome would be made to pay for tricking him into leaving everything behind and fleeing the Tendo Dojo. With his wandering ways, the absence of his backpack and umbrella were quite disturbing. He was desperately in search of the dojo to retrieve them. Coming around a corner he had time to make out a blur of red hair and fabric, when Copy chan barreled into him blindly.

      "Oof!"

      "Kyaaa!"

      *Thump*

      As the world stopped spinning, Ryouga looked down at the girl pinned beneath his body. Without thinking, he grabbed hold of her wrists, and locked his ankles over her knees while straddling her hips to keep her immobilized. One Ranma was a situation he could cope with, and this time he was going to get answers. "Ranma! You have a lot of explaining to do!" he smirked as she struggled to break his grip. "Sorry, Ranma. No running away this time. You have to answer to me once and for all!" 

      The girl bit her lip and stopped moving. Blinking away the film of tears that had obscured her vision as she fled from Ranma-chan's revelation, she brought Ryouga's face into focus. "Oh. It's you. Ryouga, right? What do you want?"

      "Are you crying?" Ryouga asked in surprise, taken off guard.

      "What of it?"

      "That's not very manly, Ranma," he jeered, sensing the advantage.

      "I'm not Ranma," she turned her head away. "Are you in the habit of jumping on top of strange girls you run into in the street?" Her mind was clicking rapidly through: _He slept with Ranma. He betrayed me. I am alone… with a boy. _"Or did you actually like that kiss?"

      Ryouga sprang back, shaking his head and waving his hands frantically as his heart thundered and his breath came in sudden gasps. "N…n.. no! I didn't… I would never… what are you doing!?" he backpedaled as Copy-chan pulled herself to her feet and stalked toward him with a coy grin.

      "I'm not doing anything. What are you all nervous about?"

      "I know that look!" Ryouga pointed at her, still backing away. "That is a dangerous look! Ranma looked like that when he was in love with me!"

      Copy-chan twitched and pulled back. "Ranma! Ranma! Ranma! Is there anyone in Tokyo who isn't involved with Ranma!" she shouted in despair.

      Ryouga paused. This was an outburst he was quite familiar with. At the same time, his mind was screaming at him to explain his last statement before anyone got the wrong idea! "It was an accident! I never meant to hook him with the koi fishing rod! Why would I want a transsexual freak like that?"

      "There's a 'fishing rod of love'?" Copy-chan wondered, picking up on the other definition of the word "koi". Responding to Ryouga, "Why does EVERYONE want a 'transsexual freak like that'?"

      "Huh?"

      "I wanted him, that pervert-girl wants him, the old pervert wants him, the pervert-with-the-bokan wants him…! I got a copy of him all to myself, and even the damned copy wanted him! Why!?"

      Ryouga was utterly stumped. He simply could not get his head around the topic. He stared at Copy-chan, while his mind wondered aimlessly in search of a familiar thought. Fortunately, the ideas he tripped over piled up in a tangle resembling coherent thought. Having seen three Ranmas, the story of the cursed mirror was suddenly sounding feasible. The distraught girl before him was obviously one of the copies, and… What did she say? Oh yeah, the other copy was… something… with Ranma. His mind flashed over the scenes from the previous night, the two Ranmas making out in the bushes, two Ranmas going into Ranma's room as a boy and a girl. Ryouga frowned. These were not good thoughts. "Um. I am a little lost, here. Maybe you should tell me what you're upset about," he suggested, reaching out a calming hand.

      Copy-chan sighed. The handsome boy with the cute fangs was not running away. He was looking concerned for her. She did not want to think about how she had been betrayed, but… Maybe if she shared her story, Ryouga would sympathize with her. He certainly seemed to have a grudge against Ranma. "I… I guess so. First, is it true that Ranma beat a guy up for kissing him?"

      "Mikado Sanzenin? I remember that. Yeah, Ranma totally lost it. He could have taken Mikado out in one blow, but he was so pissed it took five-hundred and eighteen!" Ryouga laughed, remembering his rival's humiliation. Then he shivered, "Of course, he almost killed me for using the koi rod on him. And that was an accident!" Ryouga sagged. There were aspects of Ranma's curse that were truly heinous, though he would only admit that to himself. Looking at the girl, and guessing the reason she had asked, "So, what did the other copy do to Ranma?"

      Copy-chan looked down and hugged herself. "He slept with Ranma."

      Ryouga felt his body turn to ice in shock. "N… no way!"

      "Ranma admitted it."

      "I.. impossible!" Ryouga could not believe it. "Ranma would never let a guy do that! Not in a million years!"

      "Idiot! He did it while Ranma was sleeping," she interrupted, remembering the fight with Ranma-chan: __

_      "What were you two doing last night!?"_

_      "I'm not gonna talk about it!"_

_      "I'll make you!"_

_      "A girl like you!? Don't make me laugh!"_

_      "Ha, ha! I am a girl like you!"_

_      Not a bright move, on Copy-chan's part, since that seemed to rouse Ranma-chan's anger to new heights. She went on the defensive, but continued to push her for an answer. Perhaps she was falling into Ranma's strategy of inciting her opponent, her questions and challenges barbed with insults. Unfortunately, her aim could not be achieved with her fists, so she was not really taking advantage of the openings Ranma's temper was giving her. _

_      "You could have had me! I was willing! So what!? Do you prefer guys!?"_

_      "It's not like that!"_

_      "Ah? So! Tell me what it's like! Did you kiss him!?"_

_      "Shut up!"_

_      "Did you hug him!?"_

_      Ranma-chan twitched and her guard fell open. _

_      "You hugged him!!!?"_

_      "I didn't do anything!"_

_      "Something sure happened!"_

_      "It wasn't me! It was him! The bastard!"_

_      "What did he do to you?"_

_      "He slept with me, alright!? You happy now?"_

_      Copy-chan staggered and then charged in raging, "You bitch!"_

_      "I told you it wasn't me! I was asleep, dammit!"_

_      Copy-chan reeled back at Ranma-chan's final words, "What!? You mean he… you… Damn him!" Unable to control her feelings, she flew off out of the yard in a blind rage. _

Copy-chan bit her lip. Even now, she could hardly imagine what her other half could have done, but the fact that he had tried with Ranma-chan stabbed her to the core. Shaking her head, she continued her explanation for Ryouga, "All Ranma could do was beat him up for it later. If I had not jumped in, he might have done worse."

      Ryouga was completely flabbergasted. It was simply unreal. "Does Akane know about this?" he asked in a small voice. As P-chan, Ryouga had a unique glimpse into Akane's private life, and as much as it hurt him, he was well aware that Akane had been deceived into having some feelings for Ranma. Such a revelation would hit her hard. Harder than anything Ranma had ever done. Worse, because Ranma was not really at fault if this… thing… had happened against his will. 

      Copy-chan shrugged. "I dunno. Certainly not when I left."

      Ryouga sighed with relief. He had time to get to her side before she found out. "Ran… uh… Pig-tai… uh…"

      "Copy-chan. That's what they've been calling me."

      "Copy-chan. You have to take me to the Tendo Dojo!"

      "Huh? I don't really want to go back there…"

      "Please! I'll never find it in time!"

      "I don't get it," she looked at him in confusion. 

      "I'll explain later. Right now, Akane needs me!"

      Copy-chan narrowed her eyes. She had noticed as Ryouga's concern multiplied enormously once Akane's name came up. "Don't tell me you like that fat chick too!"

      "How dare you insult Akane like that!" Ryouga was instantly enraged.

      Copy-chan did not even blink as Ryouga roared into her face. She simply kneed him in the groin. "Bastard. Coming on to me like that, and then mooning over that macho chick!" Copy-chan stood there, feet apart in a wide stance, staring down at a writhing Ryouga. Strangely, she felt much better after dropping him like that. She thought she would feel positively wonderful after doing the same to her two-timing "boyfriend". Grabbing Ryouga by the heel, she dragged him along as she returned to the dojo. 

      Fortunately for Ryouga, that was only two blocks away. 

Ranma-chan had wasted little time stripping down and entering the furo. The tub was empty when she went in, so she opened the tap to let it fill, adjusting the temperature of the flow until it was as hot as she could stand. Sitting on a stool, and sluicing her body down with cold water, she started to wash herself off. Taking her time, as her thoughts wandered over recent events, she did not notice as someone entered the laundry room and began to undress. Scrubbing feverishly, she tried to understand why everyone was so horrified by what she had said. It was true that Ranma was somewhat innocent by comparison to her peers. Part of that was because living on the road with just Genma for company had kept her sheltered from most boys her age. Most of it was in response to the curse. 

      Ranma, as a boy, had reached the age where his reaction to girls had begun to change, and on the few occasions when he interacted with boys, he had been exposed to a predictable amount of dirty talk and innuendo. He never got to know anyone well enough to let his guard down and ask anyone to explain certain words and feelings. As a "man among men" he had been forced to pretend that he understood for the most part. Once he had the curse, he had found himself in an… uncomfortable situation. Anything a boy wanted to know about a girl was literally right at his fingertips. Unfortunately, learning about womanhood through personal experience threatened to totally undermine his manhood. Against his will, he was coming to understand what it was to _be_ a girl, and that made thinking about what it was to _do_ things with a girl… disturbing. To put it lightly. It had proven much safer to just not think about such things. To block certain subjects from his mind entirely. 

      It never helped that Akane was utterly convinced that he was a complete pervert. He never understood most of the things that triggered her temper. He did not dare. It was bad enough he could not avoid learning some things about girls that no boy wanted or needed to know. Little things, like using public restrooms and baths, became major issues. Why was it a girl could appear in a men's bathroom and spark only a mild confusion, but a boy in a girl's room was in danger of being beaten within an inch of his life? 

      Why was it that only the most warped of individuals would imagine anything improper about two men huddling under a blanket to keep warm in winter, but a boy and a girl in the same position were, in the eyes of even the most rational minded, committing some sin? 

      Turning into a girl was not the curse really; it was how the world suddenly stopped making sense that was really ruining his life. 

      Ranma-chan kept scrubbing until her skin felt raw, and she did not even know why she felt so dirty. It had disturbed her that being held by a boy in her sleep could feel so comfortable. It was upsetting because she did not want to feel comfortable as a girl. Ranma-chan was too practical by nature. Being a girl had made scrounging for food ridiculously easy, allowed her to enjoy treats that no male could savor without being called a sissy, but good food was good food. She simply could not resist the temptation. Sometimes, it was good to be a girl, and that was the whole problem. Feeling warm and safe in her sleep was new and unusual, and it had been wonderful. For a half an hour, it just did not matter that she was a girl in a boy's arms. 

      She might have come to terms with the dichotomy of her existence, but thanks to her father's stupid promise to her mother, she could never let her guard down. Girls were comfortable with what they were, and it showed in how they acted. But if Ranma allowed herself to be comfortable with herself, and began acting like a girl, she would be honor bound to kill herself. That had been underscored a short while ago, when her mother caught Ranma in male form wearing clothes she had bought for Ranko. At first she had no idea it was Ranma, but it did not help that she thought he was a pervert who got off on attacking girls and stealing their clothes to wear. Worse, Happosai interfered just when Ranma thought it was safe to confront his mother and Nodoka caught him wearing a schoolgirl's uniform. She had started the ceremony for Sepuku on the spot and Ranma narrowly escaped from the knife by pretending to peep on Akane in the bath. 

      Too narrow an escape, since she almost witnessed the transformation first hand. Happosai had lobbed a Happodaikarin at Ranma, right there in the bath, and Nodoka had immediately tried to put the fuse out with a spray of cold water. Her father had batted her out the window, but the word "boy" had transferred from where he had hit "Ranma" on the head, with one of his signs, to "Ranko's" forehead. If Nodoka had not figured it out then, it was because she had not wanted to. She was too close to figuring it out. Ranma-chan did not know what she was more afraid of now, that her mother would figure it out, or show up again and try to make "Ranko" more feminine again. Even the horror of shopping for underwear and cute outfits had been… nice… because any time spent with her mother was special. Being complimented, even for cleaning up nice as a girl, touched Ranma to the depths of her soul. 

      Ranma-chan sighed. She had been so distracted by her thoughts, she had not taken any notice of the naked boy who slipped into the bathroom and began washing her back. It had actually been nice to let her hands relax and allow other hands take over scrubbing her down and shampooing her hair. The strong, gentle hands soothed her into a semi-drowsing state. Her mind just wandered off to struggle with her fears and concerns as the touching turned to caressing. Her body responded automatically, slipping her arms around his neck as he pulled her into his lap and hugged her. The pleasant ache that accompanied the kisses that crawled along her shoulder, over her collarbone and up her neck washed away all the tension in her body. When those lips closed on hers, she could not help but return the kiss, opening her mouth to taste the warmth and sweetness of his.

      Ranma-chan's eyes snapped open.

      Copy-kun sensed her body going rigid in his arms and pulled back to look in her eyes in concern. He realized that he had become quite aroused during his ministrations. The source of that hot, throbbing sensation was painfully pressed between their bodies. 

      Ranma-chan could feel him pressing into her hip. Some strange instinct was hinting that there was a better way for her body to accommodate this intrusion between them, while another set of instincts were screaming in an effort to drown the notion out. Blinking in confusion, Ranma-chan stared into those familiar blue eyes. A face she saw in the mirror almost every day, but the mirror that cast this particular reflection was an hour away by train. 

      "You!" she suddenly gasped. "What. Do. You. Think. You. ARE DOING!?"

      "C… Copy-chan," he stammered. 

      "COPY-CHAN!!!" Ranma-chan roared, levitating to her feet. 

      The boy swallowed hard and tried again. "R… Ranma?"

      "I'm gonna KILL you!"

      Copy-kun twisted on the tiles, trying to find purchase with fingers and toes to scrabble away as Ranma-chan descended with two fingers primed for a killing strike. Slipping on a bar of soap, Copy-kun went down, smashing his chin on the tiles. Ranma-chan's fingers whistled by his ear and her hand sank up to her wrist in the shattered floor. In desperation, Copy-kun braced on one hand and swept his legs under Ranma-chan, spilling her over onto her back. He lunged forward, shooting up between her legs to catch her wrists in his hands and pin her down. As his hips rode up on her pelvis, the two of them both gasped in astonishment. If his ego had not deflated in fear of death, that thrust would have punched him right into her, Copy-kun realized. As it was, the most sensitive portion of his anatomy was grinding against that of hers. He had an instant to wonder why boys and girls might be made in such a way that one could literally plug into the other.

      The door to the furo slid open to reveal Soun and Genma, the Tendo daughters twisting and straining to look around them at the commotion. They had been summoned by the sound of shouting and shattering tile. Taking one look at Copy-kun, grinding his hips down to keep Ranma-chan from writhing out of his grip, they all flinched back. Genma slammed the door closed, and the sounds of four people trying to subdue Akane commenced.

      Ranma-chan snaked her legs in under Copy-kun's arms and used the strength of her whole body to catapult him through the air and into the bath. While the boy struggled to right himself in the scalding water, Ranma-chan darted in with a flying kick. 

      *KHThock!* *Splash!*

      "Die!" Ranma-kun caught his double around the neck, in an arm lock, and shoved his head back under water. His body might have turned to stone for all the good Copy-kun's struggling mattered. In the adjoining laundry, Soun and Genma could be heard wailing in pain, as Kasumi and Nabiki retreated from Akane's wrath. Two new voices entered the fray, drawn from the genkan. 

      "Akane! What's wrong" Ryouga shouted in concern. 

      "Where's Copy-kun!?" Copy-chan demanded.

      The furo door swept open again as the three teens stormed in to see Ranma-kun busy drowning his clone. Seeing almost no expression on Ranma's face, the three advanced with sudden caution. 

      "Ranma?" Akane opened, timidly.

      "I think he's trying to kill him," Copy-chan gasped. 

      "I think he IS killing him," Ryouga strode forward into the hot water. 

      "What are you doing?" the girls asked in surprise. 

      "We have to stop him. Ranma will never forgive himself for murder."

      Ranma did not even respond to the lost boy's presence. The pervert in his arms was still moving, and nothing else mattered until he stopped. Ryouga grabbed his rival and strained to pry him away from his victim, with little success. Ranma casually backhanded Ryouga into the wall. Akane picked up the sprayer and pointed it in Ranma's face. Ryouga took one look at the threat of cold water and dove under water with a gasp. Copy-chan climbed into the bath and onto Ranma's back, trying to pull him up by his neck. Akane shot a stream of cold water directly into Ranma's face. 

      Ranma screamed. Drenched with cold water, while immersed to his waist in hot water, his body flickered insanely fast between forms, trying to respond to the combined triggers of his curse. An agony, not unlike being struck by lightening, caused Ranma's muscles to spasm. Since his only leverage was through his feet, the convulsions shot him out of the bath. Akane kept tracking with the cold water, forcing Ranma to stop shifting in female form. She shut off the water just as Ryouga reared up, gasping for air, holding an unconscious Copy-kun in his arms. Akane and Copy-chan rushed over to Ranma-chan's side.

      Ranma had curled up into a quivering ball as soon as the pain stopped. __

Ranma was sitting at the table, shoveling food into his mouth when the others came downstairs to join him. They had just finished interrogating Copy-kun upstairs, with the threat of unleashing Ranma on him again to ensure they got every detail of the truth. It seemed strange that so much could happen in one morning. Copy-kun was hardly more articulate than Ranma, but with Nabiki asking the questions, and the boy answering yes or no, it was quickly determined that far less had happened than expected. The fight in the bathroom had come the closest to realizing everyone's fears. Ranma was fortunate that it was not in his nature to be turned on by violence, or…

      It did not bear thinking on. 

      If Ranma had come close to killing over a near miss, no one wanted to know his response to a bulls-eye. Ranma had not uttered a word or even opened her eyes until the others had removed Copy-kun from the bathroom. Once they had, she had simply splashed herself with hot water, gotten dressed and walked out in search of breakfast. He did not acknowledge anyone as they came to the table. They ate their late meal in silence, not daring to speak first. 

      Ranma put down his bowl and turned to Kasumi. "That was delicious, Kasumi! Thank you!" Everyone stopped eating and turned to him. He looked around the table, seeing Akane, Nabiki, Soun, Ryouga, Copy-chan and Genma looking more timid than he had ever seen them. "Where is he?"

      "Upstairs," Nabiki answered, crossing her arms.

      "Would someone get him? I have something to say, and he should hear it."

      Akane quickly went up to get the boy clone. 

      When Copy-kun joined them all at the table, looking deathly pale, Ranma cleared his throat. "I'm not good with words, so I'll keep this simple." Looking his double in the eye, he continued, "You and I owe Ryouga and Akane a debt of gratitude. You, because they saved your life, and me, because they stopped me from committing murder.

      "I have never been so angry in my life. This I am ashamed of," he looked down and the mask of formality slipped to reveal the emotion that had haunted him since the scene in the bath. Coughing, he looked up, allowing his shame to remain on his face, "I can't blame you for something you did in your sleep. I can't blame you for mistaking me for someone else, even if she is my copy. If I had been payin' attention, and not daydreaming in there, none of that would have happened. I failed as a martial artist to be on guard. That humiliation is part of my punishment." Ranma lapsed into silence. Forcing himself to speak formally, as an adult was taxing. 

      Copy-kun, recently enlightened somewhat by Nabiki's pointed questions, sat there in a daze. One of the mysteries of "making love" had been revealed, but his shame at having almost performed it with Ranma was choking him. 

      Ranma saw his embarrassment and continued. "What happened this morning will NEVER happen again. I don't care what you have to do to make sure of it, but know this. If this, or anything like this, happens again, I will kill you," he turned to include Copy-chan in his declaration. "Both of you."

      "Why me?" Copy-chan asked in a small voice.

      "Because, despite what you two said last night, you obviously intended to keep doin' the same thing behind our backs. This morning would not have happened if you had meant what you said." Ranma watched her bow her head. She made no attempt to deny it. "Since I can't trust you two, I have to do something I really didn't wanna do."

      Akane looked at Ranma curiously. She had seen the serious side of Ranma before, but not like this. This was sort of frightening. "What are you going to do, Ranma?" she asked hesitantly. 

      "Originally, I was gonna have these two stay out of sight until we could take them back to Mirror Mansion. I see now that won't work. So, I have to take them to school with me. Everyone already knows about Copy-chan, so it won't be hard to explain another copy. I don't like it, but at least this way I can keep an eye on them."

      "I'll help then," Akane announced.

      "That's not necessary."

      "Yes it is. If you really want to keep them from getting into trouble, you have to split them up. I'll take Copy-kun and keep an eye on him. I really don't think it's a good idea for you and him to be together more than necessary," she insisted. Ryouga nodded in agreement. He had little love for his rival, but the last thing he wanted to see was Ranma become a killer. 

      "Fine. Just be careful, he's as good as I am," Ranma reminded her.

      Akane produced her mallet and grinned, as if to say it was hardly a challenge. Strangely enough, that brought a smile to Ranma's face. "Now, with that settled, I want to clear up this other misunderstanding."

      Everyone looked at Ranma curiously. 

      "I don't know what everyone was thinking this morning, when I tried to explain why I beat Copy-kun up, but it's not what you think!"

      Nabiki cleared her throat, "Don't worry about that, Ranma-kun. I got the story from Copy-kun. I'll try to explain it to Daddy and Saotome-ojisan so they don't have an aneurysm." Ranma sighed in relief. He still did not understand how he had been so misunderstood, but hopefully Nabiki would not extort too much to set the record straight. 

      Ranma stood up and held out his hand to Copy-chan, "Come on. We'll be late for school." She hesitated, looking at Copy-kun and assuring herself that whatever he had done, it had been intended for her benefit. He screwed up seriously, but she was still the one in his heart. She had not been betrayed. Taking Ranma's hand, she accompanied him out to the street. Akane followed with Copy-kun, and Ryouga shouldered his backpack and set out in search of Akari. 


	6. The Learning Experience

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Six: The Learning Experience

A normal morning at the Tendo Dojo frequently consisted of morning battles between Ranma and Genma, a rushed breakfast, and a leisurely walk to school. Which is to say, as much possible time was set aside for actually getting to school on account of the practical certainty that someone would intercept Ranma and Akane before they could report to class. That being said, running late this Monday morning was something of a boon to the two youths as they herded Ranma's clones to school. Anyone intent on ambushing them had been perplexed by missing them, and had rushed to school in the assumption that they had just missed their targets. 

      Ranma, dragging Copy-chan by the hand, rocketed towards Furinkan High via the rooftops of Nerima, while Akane raced down the sidewalks below. Because she had Copy-kun by the hand, she was trying more to escape any attention from straggling students. Bound to endure her chaperonage by Ranma's declaration, he allowed her to drag him along without comment. 

      The greatest danger, Ranma guessed, would be that Kuno would wait in the school yard until the last bell. For various reasons, Ranma did not look forward to having Kuno see him and Copy-chan together. His insane notion that Ranma and the "Pig-tailed-girl" were having an illicit affair, courtesy of dark sorcery on Ranma's part, did not need any further encouragement. It had been fortunate that Kuno had been too concussed, after blundering into Copy-chan's schemes to abduct Ranma, to be sure that anything he had witnessed had been real. The memory of Kuno glomping Ranma-chan and Copy-chan in the flooded mirror trap, raving, "Now there are TWO Pig-tailed-goddesses!" was sure to have a prominent place in Ranma's nightmares for years to come. 

      Unfortunately, by bringing both copies to school, it was inevitable that Kuno would spot them and go ballistic. Out of sheer, morbid curiosity, Ranma found himself wondering how Kuno's mind would deal with one Ranma escorting his Pig-tailed-goddess while Akane led another "Ranma" around by the hand. No doubt he would credit it to more dark magic from the evil sorcerer Saotome.

      Ranma groaned.

      "What's the matter?" Copy-chan looked at him in confusion. 

      "Nothing. You'll see soon enough," Ranma spotted the school gates as the pair launched themselves over the last row of houses. Sure enough, the kendoist was waiting between them and the front entrance. 

      "Long have the Heavens wept, that so foul a smear on the face of creation has run amok, unvanquished, lo these past months," Tatewaki Kuno began spouting as he spotted Ranma streaking down from the sky. "Today, this atrocity shall end at the hands of I, the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High School! Bow down, black-hearted sorcerer, and taste the divine wrath of Kuno Tatewaki!"

      "Yo, Kuno," Ranma greeted him offhandedly as he landed before his self-appointed rival. The echo of Copy-chan's landing treaded closely on the heels of Ranma's, and the girl stepped out of his shadow into Kuno's line of sight. 

      "Hey! It's the pervert-with-the-bokan!"

      "Oh! My Pig-tailed-goddess!" Kuno almost bounded forward, but stopped at the sight of the girl's hand held firmly in Ranma's. "Saotome! How dare you flaunt your unholy enslavement of the ravishing Pig-tailed-girl! Unhand her, you cur!" Kuno tensed once more into a threatening position. It was unspeakable that for once the majesty of his presence had not forced the dog to flee from the side of the fair maiden. Truly his command of the dark arts was growing!

      Sighing, Ranma calmly walked forward, stepping inside Kuno's guard to meet him eye to eye at close range. His hand swept the wooden sword out of line as he advanced. In spite of himself, the kendoist was forced to cringe back or allow himself to retreat before this demon. "Kuno. I am running late already. You gonna talk or fight?"

      "You are good at hiding your fear, foul serpent! I fight!" Kuno sprung into action. He struck first at Ranma's arm, seeking to sever the connection between him and Copy-chan. Copy-chan saw this and instantly whipped Ranma around behind her, out of the line of Kuno's strike. Her foot had snapped up to Kuno's chin without thought, launching him over the school.

      Ranma jerked her around and shouted into her face, "What do you think you're doin'? That's butting in on a man to man fight!"

      Copy-chan leaned back and shrugged. "I didn't mean to. It just sort of happened." Ranma stared down at her. The bulk of martial arts was conditioned reflex. With all the techniques he had passed on to his clones, was it also possible that he had passed on a gut level instinct to pummel Kuno? He relaxed to ponder this for a moment. She looked at him for a bit, and then, "Didn't you just say you were late for class?"

      "Oh. Not quite," Ranma blinked, glancing up at the clock. "Let's go!"

      The two raced inside, side by side. Having been here before, Copy-chan did not need to be led. As they reached the third floor classroom and entered, they saw boys and girls huddled around various desks in conversation. Various eyes turned their way as Ranma led her to his desk. A second wave of stares turned on them as people realized Copy-chan was following him. 

      "Hey, Ranma! I thought you were gonna get rid of her?"

      "What is she still doing here?"

      "Alright! We still have a chance!"

      "So, it's true," this last comment came from Ukyo. She had sprung from her desk to intercept Ranma. She had been absent the week before dealing with restaurant business, and had only heard rumors about a second Ranma-chan. Now she stood before Ranma, studying the girl intently, bursting with curiosity. "What exactly is going on here, Ranchan?"

      "Oh. Hi, Ucchan!" Ranma smiled at her. "I guess I should explain all this," he rubbed the back of his head in faint embarrassment. He quickly related the tale of the cursed mirror and what had happened when he had tried to return the girl to where she came from. Even as he was explaining that the other copy was a boy, Akane slipped into the room with Copy-kun. This caused quite a sensation in the classroom. Ukyo looked over in astonishment, and then her gaze traveled down to see the boy's hand held firmly in Akane's. 

      _Well. This is interesting, she thought to herself. _

      Ranma, Ukyo and Copy-chan wandered over to Akane, noticing the distressed look on her face. The five huddled in a circle, shutting out the excited questions and speculation of the class. In a hushed voice, Akane explained how she had attempted to sneak Copy-kun in through the rear entrance when Kuno had come flying over the school and crashed in front of them. Before they could step around him, he sprung up and began accosting Copy-kun for cozying up to the Pig-tailed-girl and Akane, both in one morning. Copy-kun, still somewhat upset over the scene in the bathroom with Ranma-chan, interpreted "Pig-tailed-girl" to mean "Ranma-chan" and went into a fit of apoplexy. He could not understand how this strange boy could know about the incident, but for daring to rub his nose in it, he had proceeded to kick the stuffing out of the kendoist. Ukyo listened until her eyes narrowed. 

      "What did you do to Ranchan!?" she demanded. 

      As Ranma went to open his mouth, Akane clapped her hand over it in a panic. On the verge of hyperventilating, her hair standing on end, she turned to Ukyo and said, "There was a little misunderstanding this morning. Copy-kun, here, has a little thing for Copy-chan. Of course he can't tell her apart from Ranma in girl form. You don't want to know the details, just believe me, nothing really happened." Ranma pried her hand away from his mouth. 

      "I could have told her that! What's the big idea?"

      "I…" Akane gulped. "Let's just say, it's better not to hear these things from your mouth. You have a way of, um, confusing people." Akane was blushing hard enough to light a room. Ukyo's eyes went wide, but she wisely decided not to press for the moment. She was more interested in the fact that Copy-kun was going to great lengths to keep close to Akane, putting her between him and Ranma. Ukyo caught the look of irritation on Akane's face, as she turned and pounded him down for brushing up against her. "Stop that, you pervert!"

      _Very interesting, Ukyo revised. _

      _That was too close, Akane cringed, controlling her breathing. _

      They had to cut the discussion short as the teacher entered and the final bell rang. Rushing to their desks, they watched the teacher goggle over the addition of Ranma's clones to the class. Once again, Ranma had to explain their presence, insisting that it was important for him to keep an eye on them. Given Ranma's reputation at school, Miss Hinako agreed with this whole heartedly. Fortunately for everyone else, the instant she began instruction, all three Ranmas promptly nodded off on their desks. 

      Across the room from Akane, Ukyo studied the situation with subdued enthusiasm. Copy-kun had done something humiliating to Ranchan, and now Akane had attached herself to him, allegedly as a chaperone to keep him away from the other double. Ukyo was skeptical, though. It was not hard to imagine Akane giving Ranchan the old heave-ho in favor of an all male version. Ukyo still found the curse fascinating, but Akane had made her distaste for her betrothed's condition painfully clear. It would not do to jump to any conclusions, but she was going to keep a sharp eye on all of them. She was not going to miss an opportunity to claim Ranchan for herself, once and for all!

As class subjects changed, and new teachers cycled through the room, Ranma had to be roused to repeat his explanation for them. Many of them were more strict about students paying attention, so Ranma and his copies had to endure a few grueling hours of boredom. Copy-chan was already familiar with the environment, but Copy-kun was awash with confusion, and kept passing notes to Akane. The subjects were all benign at first, asking her to explain the layout of the school, where bathrooms and such were, when they would be allowed to eat. Some of the questions were inspired by the between-class conversations he overheard, such as, was it true that she was engaged to Ranma, did they love each other, did they practice making love. Akane did her best to restrain herself from making any outbursts in class, but her face took on a deeper shade of rage and embarrassment as the notes progressed. Ukyo made what she would of that, a grin growing by the hour. 

      From observing the other couple, Ukyo noted that Copy-chan rushed over to talk to Hiroshi and Daisuke between classes. The three of them huddled, talking in hushed excitement. Ranma kept an eye on her from a distance, but showed no signs of interest in what she was discussing with the pair of perverts. From the rumors she had heard, Ranma had spent the past week trying to keep her away from anything male. Apparently, he had eased off a bit; distanced himself from her. Watching him, alone at his desk, she noticed that his face occasionally took on a strangely vulnerable expression. At those times, he would glance over at Akane and Copy-kun, and look positively wounded, before snapping his attention away. 

      Ukyo licked her lips. There was definitely something going on. If the part of the rumors about the mirror clone chasing anything of the opposite sex were true, and this boy was just as bad as the girl, there was a good chance that he had started putting the moves on Akane. Somewhat successfully too, if the blushing, squirming, and diminished temper (for Akane) were anything to go by. Combined with that lost look on Ranma's face, it seemed a sure thing that his un-cute fiancée had shifted her affections to his double. 

      It was definitely time to test the waters.

      At the next class break, the last before lunch, Ukyo made her way over to Ranma's desk. Akane did not notice. She had dragged Copy-kun into a corner where they were having a heated discussion under their breaths. Perfect. Ukyo propped herself against Ranma's desk and looked into his eyes. "What's the matter, Ranchan? You're lookin' a little down," she gave him a friendly, concerned smile. 

      Ranma's eyes flinched away. His mind had been wandering over the scene in the bath, noticing things he had missed at the time. His habit of reviewing battles was torturing him, as it forced him to consider what could have happened as well as what had happened. His denial did not extend so far that he failed to comprehend the differences between a penis and a vagina. His friendship with Hiroshi and Daisuke also ensured that he knew that the perverts thought sticking one in the other was the pinnacle of their raunchy dreams. Failing to understand _why anyone would want to do such a thing to a girl did not protect him from the realization that Copy-kun almost __had done that to him. The horror of it had shown in his eyes when Ukyo looked at him. _

      Ukyo's eyes widened as Ranma visibly paled. "Ranchan?"

      "Sorry, Ukyo. My mind was on somethin' else."

      "Are you alright, sugar?"

      "Yeah. Fine. What's up? What did you want to talk about?" Ranma collected his wits and composed his features. He was glad of the distraction, since it kept his mind from wandering down a dark and dangerous path, opening doors that were better kept sealed. 

      "I can see these copies are making your life miserable. I thought, maybe it would help to talk about what's going on. You know, with a friend?" she smiled, putting a hand on his. Ranma looked a little surprised, then shook his head and smiled back.

      "Thanks, Ucchan, but I don't feel much like talkin' about it right now."

      Ukyo was not going to be brushed off that easy. If she could get him to open up, if she could exploit that vulnerability she was seeing, she could win him away from Akane completely. "It sounds like Copy-kun and Akane did some really bad things to you. It's not good to keep things like that to yourself," she pressed. To her surprise, Ranma twitched in pain at her words. 

      "A… Akane didn't do nothin' to me!" 

      "It's not what she did, so much as how she's reacting to all this. I can see you're upset about it. Come on, Ranchan, you don't have to hide these things from me," she squeezed his hand reassuringly. 

      "Yeah, Akane's acted a little weird about all this, but… That's not really surprising. She always reacts badly to stuff I say and do," Ranma admitted. While this was true of just about everyone, it was always worst with Akane.

      "Are you afraid I'll over react if you tell me what happened this morning?"

      Ranma nodded.

      Ukyo sighed and shook her head. She leaned forward and slipped her arms around him, hugging him tight. "I made the mistake of hating you for something you didn't do once. I'm not going to do that again if I can help it, Ranchan," she whispered. It was the most touching and comforting overture anyone had ever made to the troubled boy. He relaxed in her arms, and returned the hug, daring to think he could confide in someone at last. 

      "What the hell do you think you're doing!?" Akane screamed, flying across the room and dropping on Ranma like a jack hammer. Ukyo barely recoiled fast enough to avoid the blow. She growled at the sight of Akane's jealous temper. Obviously, her affections had not strayed far enough. 

      Ranma clawed his way up from the shattered remains of his desk and shouted into Akane's face, "Baka kawaiikune!!! That hurt! What did I do to you!?"

      "Oh, like you don't know!"

      "Yeah! I don't know! I wasn't doin' anything!"

      "Jerk! Do you think I am blind!?"

      "I don't know what your problem is, you violent tom-boy!"

      *Wham!*

      "Ite!" Ranma pulled himself up again, "See! There you go again!"

      "Everyone! Come here! Ranma and Akane are having a lover's quarrel!"

      "Do they look like lovers to you?"

      "Now see what you started!?" Akane fumed, blazing red.

      "What I started!? You jumped on me!"

      "I did not! How dare you say that! Jerk!"

      *B-thwam!*

      "That does it! You leave Ranchan alone!"

      "You stay out of this, spatula-girl!"

      "Hey! Don't talk to Ucchan like that!"

      While Ranma, Ukyo and Akane faced off in a three way shouting match, Copy-chan looked over at Copy-kun, and the two of them inched their way out of the room. 

From the door, Copy-chan and Copy-kun watched the argument raging in the classroom. They were starting to understand the danger of being a Ranma shaped target around angry people. As they listened to Ranma insulting Akane, Akane clobbering Ranma, and Ukyo accusing Akane of two timing Ranchan with Copy-kun, they considered retreating even further. The instant that Akane, in the heat of rage, let slip that Ranma had been the one "two timing with Copy-kun", they turned heel and sprinted away. The sound of Ukyo exploding could be heard throughout the school, echoed by the astounded voices of the rest of the class. Their feet took them through the school and out onto the grounds, where they stopped and turned to each other. 

      "That was insane," Copy-kun commented. 

      Copy-chan nodded and leaned against him. "I hope they don't blame us for getting' the hell out of there," she sighed. She dropped cross-legged onto the grass, and Copy-kun joined her. Her mind quickly went through the limitations that Ranma had set on them and reached some conclusions she shared with him. "Well, the only reason for splitting us up is to keep us out of trouble. If the trouble starts with them, we sort of have to turn to each other to stay out of trouble. Ranma isn't here, so there's no chance of one of us doin' anything with him. I think we're safe at the moment."

      "Uh, sure. That makes sense."

      "So. What do you wanna do?"

      "Um. Well, I've figured out some new things about making love. We could talk about that. I mean, talkin' is okay, right?"

      "Sure. Me too," she smiled, and began to share her conversations with Hiroshi and Daisuke with him. She had sat down with the two of them and outlined her interesting in learning how to make love, and asked them to explain how it all worked. They enthusiastically began to describe a list of mating practices and rituals, explaining that there were some steps that came before actually making love. First, there was dating, which let a boy and a girl get to know each other. Then there was flirting and making out, which helped them figure out if they liked each other. If they liked each other, they moved on to heavy petting. This allowed them to become familiar with each other's bodies and felt awful good! 

      "Now they also said that making out and heavy petting are also part of making love. They called it foreplay," she explained, as she went on to sharing the details of these techniques with him. 

      "Oh. That's a lot more than I figured out," he confessed. He went on to explain the part he had stumbled onto, and which Nabiki had clued him in on. She sat there wide eyes as he explained how male and female bodies fit together, and that doing that, according to Nabiki, was making love.

      "Wow. I guess that explains why a girl needs a boy to make love properly. Nice to know there's an actual reason, and not just some arbitrary rule," she mused thoughtfully. Sighing, she looked at him. "Well, it's no wonder we were doing so badly. We totally skipped dating and flirting. Making out is hugging and kissing, so we missed out on the first steps."

      "That's sort of good news, too," Copy-kun observed. "I mean, a lot of that stuff goes on in making love, but you can do all that without actually making love. That means we can actually practice most of it without anyone getting upset." He smiled and looked pleased.

      "What do you mean?"

      "Well, when Nabiki was questioning me, she was most concerned with finding out if I had made love with Ranma. She figured out that I was not sure what that meant, so she asked a lot of questions until she figured out that I never actually…" he searched for the word she had used. "Oh, that's it. I never actually penetrated Ranma. Once they heard that, they all relaxed and Nabiki told me that I had not made love with her… uh, him. Whatever."

      Copy-chan raised her eyebrows and considered that. "Well," she tilted her head, "that's good news then. Maybe we can start dating and flirting then. I suppose we'll have to get someone to come along and make sure we don't get in trouble."

      "I am sure if we explain what we are doing, they won't get so upset."

      "Um. There is one problem though."

      "What's that?"

      "From what Hiro and Dai said, what we're doing right now is a lot like dating," she explained. Dating, according to them, was essentially going somewhere nice, like a movie, a restaurant or a park, with a member of the opposite sex and talking about things. Ideally, talking about doing more things together, and talking about each other. "I mean, we're both so new, it doesn't take much to get to know each other. We know as much about each other as we do about our selves," she pointed out. 

      "Oh. Well, we're not causing any trouble. Maybe we should work on flirting then, since we're already dating?"

      "That's a good idea!"

      Looking at each other, beaming smiles, they were suddenly stumped.

      "Uh. They really didn't explain much about flirting," she admitted.

      The two of them suddenly looked crestfallen. How were they ever going to get good at this?

      "Wait, since flirting helps us figure out if we like each other… If we already like each other, maybe we don't have to worry about flirting," Copy-kun suggested. They started smiling at each other again. "So, what did you say the next part was?"

      "Well, if flirting is going well, and I suppose that means if you like each other, the next thing is making out," she stated practically. "Cool. We're back to where we were before! I have to tell you, I think I really like the making out part!"

      "Oh, me too. Even with Ranma it was nice!"

      *Bonk!*

      "Ite! I didn't mean nothin' by it. Besides, Ranma doesn't like me, so it didn't work out all that well in the end."

      "Hmmmph! Do you like Ranma!?"

      "Uh. Never really thought about it. I like Ranma a lot better as a girl, that's for sure!"

      *Bonk!*

      "Stop that! I didn't say I liked Ranma like I like you! I like Ranma because I like you," he babbled. 

      "Well, you're gonna get us both killed if you keep on liking Ranma so much. I suppose I could make the same mistake, so let's agree to make sure neither of us are Ranma before we do anything, alright?"

      "Good idea. I'm not Ranma."

      "Me either."

      "Can we make out now?"

      "Oh yeah!"

When the teacher came in to start the next class, Ranma, Akane and Ukyo stopped fighting and looked around. Copy-chan and Copy-kun were nowhere in sight. They began to turn the room upside down in search of the clones, and the teacher threw a fit. The three were sent to stand in the hall, a bucket of water in each hand. The moment the door shut behind them, they dropped the buckets and began to search through the school. Seeing the panic in Ranma and Akane's eyes, Ukyo had come along to find out what the pair were so worried about. 

      It did not take long for them to check all the restrooms and storage rooms, working together. 

      "Why is it so important to keep tabs on those two?" Ukyo wondered.

      "Did you hear what we were saying about them earlier?"

      "You keep circling around that part."

      "Don't remind me," Ranma shuddered.

      "So, what's the big deal?"

      "The big deal is that they're obsessed with each other," Akane frowned.

      "Sounds more like you two are obsessed with them," Ukyo glared at Ranma. She was still in shock about what Akane had accused him of during the class break. Ranma had shouted back that the copy had started… did… everything. Ukyo was burning to know what he "did". 

      "I don't want anything to do with either of them," Ranma complained, looking faintly horrified. "I just want to keep them from getting me into trouble until we can put them both back in the mirror."

      "Me too," Akane clenched her teeth.

      "Alright. Let's check outside then," Ukyo headed for the entrance. 

      As they stepped out into the sunlight, they noticed the rigid form of Kuno. They approached carefully, seeing the tension in his form. They were so intent on him, they were almost upon him when they looked at what he was staring at. Before them, basking in the glory of each other, were Copy-kun and Copy-chan. They were not wrestling. Wrestling was not that much fun. Ukyo gaped in abject astonishment. The couple was having as much fun as was possible for two bodies with all their clothes on. Their limbs were tangled, their lips locked around probing tongues. Ranma looked as stunned as Kuno, who happened upon this scene while patrolling the grounds in search of his pig-tailed-goddess. Perhaps the only reason he had not struck a blow, or moved a step, was the fact that the two were obviously, deliriously happy, and Kuno's mind could not encompass such a possibility. 

      Poor Ranma was not much better off. His pig-tail rose straight in the air, he clutched his head in his hands, opened his mouth to scream, and promptly keeled over unconscious. Akane rushed to his side, finding him white as a ghost, and covered her mouth in fright. 

      "Ranchan?" Ukyo stared. 

      Akane put her hand on his forehead and pulled it away quickly, shifting to his neck to find his pulse. After a second, Akane clenched her fist and hammered it down on his chest. Her fingers returned to his pulse and she sagged with relief. 

      "Is he okay?"

      "I'm taking him to the nurse's office. You take care of those two."

      "Uh, sure," Ukyo frowned with worry as Akane picked Ranma up, throwing him over her shoulder, and went back into the school. Turning to Kuno, she blew a breath gently in his direction, and the kendoist toppled over. "What a bunch of drama queens!" she shook her head and went over to the love birds. Taking the giant spatula from the harness across her back, she took careful aim.

      *Whonk-a-whonk!*

      "Ite!"

      "Kyaa!"

      "What was that for!?" in unison.

      Ukyo squatted down in front of them. "You two just gave Ranchan a heart attack, or something," she informed them. They shared a guilty, frightened look. "You two aren't serious, are you?"

      "What?"

      "I mean, that was some impressive kissing going on there, but," Ukyo shook her head, "You're not seriously in love, are you?"

      "Uh. Well, we just haven't gotten around to making love," Copy-chan informed her seriously. "But we're workin' on it!" Even though they were beginning to puzzle out the act of making love, they had not yet distinguished it as something apart from the state of being in love. As far as they were concerned, the act was a prerequisite. 

      Ukyo tasted grass. Pulling her face off of the ground and dusting herself off, she gaped, "Working on it!?"

      "Well, it doesn't just happen, you know," Copy-chan glared.

      "Except that one time with Ranma… or was it two times?" Copy-kun murmured, before correcting himself. "Well, almost, anyway."

      Ukyo willed her brains to return to the site of detonation, and raised her spatula threateningly, "WHAAAAT!?"

      Copy-kun waved his hands, "Hold on, hold on! I wasn't trying to make love with Ranma. I thought he was her." He pointed at Copy-chan, who waved and smiled. "It was an innocent mistake."

      "You're saying you ACCIDENTALLY made love to Ranchan!!!"

      "Uh. No. It was an accident, but we didn't actually make love!"

      Ukyo sagged in relief, "Thank the Kami!"

      "We just made out," Copy-kun added for clarification. 

      Ukyo reared up amid a pillar of flames. The couple jumped up and backpedaled from the raging battle aura she was putting out. While they could not understand why she was so upset, they could certainly tell she was about ready to kill them. Ranma's foot-in-mouth disease had been shared with them in all its glory. The next few minutes were a blur of spatula dodging. 

      "I'm gonna kill you!"

      "Hey! I didn't do anything!" Copy-chan wailed.

      "I'll make sure you never get a chance!"

      "But I only want to make love with her!" Copy-kun dodged behind Copy-chan and pushed her forward for emphasis. 

      This was, of course, the moment a leotard clad figure bounded into view, snapping her ribbon to snare Ukyo. Her intended cry of, "Fear not, Ranma-sama, I shall save you from these foul harridans," changed instantly to, "What treacherous hold does that pig-tailed-tramp have over you, that you would utter such a horrible lie!"

      Ukyo looked up, her arms pinned to her sides by the ribbon, and gasped, "Kodachi! What are you doing here?" Appearances by Kuno's little sister did not come lightly. Not when she was forced to bound halfway across Nerima, laughing like a maniac, just to show up at Furinkan. 

      "I heard a foul rumor that this red-headed demon had followed my darling Ranma-sama to school, and would not stop harassing him!" Kodachi cried, snaking another ribbon in Copy-chan's direction. 

      "Who told you that?" the okonomiaki chef puzzled. 

      Kodachi unerringly pointed out Kuno, laying in the grass, "Why, my deranged, dear, elder brother." 

      "Why would he do that?"

      "Quite simple. He had to inform me that we had won a bet!"

      Everyone stopped struggling and stared in confusion. 

      "Does that make any sense to you?" Copy-kun asked Copy-chan. 

      Copy-chan shook her head. 


	7. Upping the Stakes

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Seven: Upping the Stakes

The school grounds at Furinkan High had a pleasant, park-like atmosphere. A well tended lawn carpeted the area between the school buildings and the enclosing wall. Trees and shrubs, intermixed with a few sculptures and fixtures, providing pools of shade and interesting features for the eye to dwell on. In spite of the tasteful landscaping, few eyes ever rested on the scenery when certain specimens of the student body were present. The standoff between the Kuno siblings and the Ranma copies, with Ukyo square in the middle, had drawn students from their desks to press against the windows overlooking them. Once again, teachers bemoaned the power of all things Ranma-related to disrupt the stoic institution of learning, before planting their own faced against the glass in avid curiosity. 

            The five students below, having recovered from the confusion of Kodachi's entrance—and in Kuno's case, the shock of the clones making out—were back to weaving the deadly dance of their respective arts. As tended to happen when the martial artists of Nerima gathered in numbers greater than two, the event was drawn out and complicated, with elements of slapstick blended in as one combatant cut in between two or more others to make overtures of passion, or in the case of the Kunos, psychosis.

            From the window of her own classroom, Nabiki looked down on this confusion and knew one thing. With the appearance of Kodachi, it was clear that her two best "clients" intended to collect on the "unwinable" bet. How was Nabiki to know, a month ago, that any force on Earth could split Ranma into his component aspects? 

            She remembered standing nearby as Tatawaki and Kodachi bickered over their most recent sibling squabble. It had begun with Tatewaki destroying a large poster of Ranma that Kodachi had procured from Nabiki. It had ended with Kodachi's attempt to ruin the reputations of her brother, and the "Pig-tailed-girl", and Tatewaki's arranging for Ranma to be Kodachi's slave for a day. Naturally, enough hot and cold water had been involved to ensure that Ranma was pursued and persecuted in both forms. Being temporarily on good terms, after Tatewaki finally apologized to his sister, they had agreed that the next time Ranma and the Pig-tailed-girl showed up in the same place, Kuno would take the girl in hand, Kodachi would take the boy in hand, and they would go separate ways without interfering with each other. 

            Nabiki had laughed and commented that they would never see Ranma and the Pig-tailed-girl at the same time. The Kunos had turned to her, well aware that wherever one of them was, the other always seemed to turn up, and bet her a million yen, each, that they certainly would. Believing that they could not possibly win, Nabiki took their bets, with a few conditions. First, there was a time limit. It was hard to collect on a bet if the deciding event could never happen, so they had until the end of the school year. Second, Ranma and the Pig-tailed-girl had to be seen side-by-side, in person, by both Kunos and impartial witnesses. She had been looking forward to her two-million-yen prize at the end of the term, until Ranma stumbled into that damned mirror. During the first week, Nabiki had gone to great lengths to ensure that Kuno was kept busy away from school, and seeing to it that any witnesses the Kunos might use would not be impartial. 

            Once the second copy got loose, Nabiki had turned her attention to finding some way to get out of paying off the bet, since it was inevitable that the copies would encounter the Kunos. Fortunately, recent events had inspired her with a solution to more than one problem, that could save her from coughing up two-million-yen. If she was careful, she could actually double her original expected gains in the process. The hard part was coming up with two-million-yen to bait her trap. As soon as the lunch bell rang, her plan would go to into motion. 

            Until then, she looked down out the window and enjoyed the show.

            As she watched, one of her factors entered the room and rushed to her elbow. "I tracked them down. Akane took Ranma to the infirmary," she announced quietly, handing Nabiki the package in her hands. "Here are the pictures you wanted. The photography club developed all seven rolls of film and each of your lieutenants have prints, as you requested. Mixed sets, of course. People will have to buy all fifty sets for a complete collection of the good shots. They're selling like crazy, too! I unloaded mine on the way up here!"

            "Good. Are we going to make the deadline?"

            "Two mil by lunchtime? No sweat!"

            "Excellent. Go hit the cashbox and make sure it's secure. I'll pick it up on the way to lunch. Good work!" Nabiki patted the girl on the shoulder as she bowed and ran out of the room. It would be nice if the pictures from the night before could generate two-million-yen in one morning, but a few hundred thousand, combined with the funds in the betting and lottery pools, as well as the mortgage payments for the dojo covering the next three months, would be enough cash on hand to confront the Kunos. If Kodachi and Kuno did not rise to the bait, getting through the end of the school year was going to take some fancy footwork. She grinned. This was the most fun she'd had since her date-duel with Kinnosuke!

            Nabiki shoved the window open and leaned out to hear better. 

            "Stand your ground, vile knave! Though the vengeance of heaven is slow but sure, swift is my blade, and swifter, death does fly to embrace you! Dost thou fear so, the might of the great Kuno Tatewaki?"

            "Are you sayin' I should stand there and let you hit me!!?"

            "Verily so! And at once, I say!"

            "You're insane!"

            "Yea! Though I stand in the midst of my sanity, so it is that I am in sanity personified!" Kuno raved. 

            "You psycho! You just insulted yourself!" Copy-chan stopped and gaped at him. Kodachi noticed her distraction and veered off from her pursuit of "Ranma-sama" to streak down with a giant mallet.

            "Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho! Now I have you, wicked temptress!"

            "Kyaaa!" Copy-chan sprung up into the air as Kodachi crashed down, narrowly escaping from being brained. Kodachi rebounded up into the air after her.

            "Hey! Leave her alone!" Copy-kun turned and charged back at Kuno.

            "Stay, my dear sister! Do not touch this fair damsel!" Kuno stepped forward to where the two girls were about to descend and thrust straight up, between Copy-chan's legs, aiming for the huge mallet in his sister's hands.

            "Waaa! Watch where you're puttin' that thing!" she arched back, allowing the blade to pass harmlessly in front of her and strike the mallet head, shattering it. Her momentum carried her in a back-flip to land behind Copy-kun. The Kunos rebounded from their mid-air impact and confronted their targets of choice. Their enemies in front of them, they charged in, weapons at the fore. 

            "Copy-chan! Switch!"

            *Whoosh* 

            *Ka-Klunka-Konk!*

            Kuno and Kodachi flew off in opposite directions.

            "And, they're down for the count," Nabiki commented, turning to begin hawking her share of lingerie photos. "Hey everyone! Special today, lingerie spectacular photos featuring Ranma-chan and Copy-chan! Get them while they're hot!" Half the boys in the room, and more than a few girls perked up and swarmed around Nabiki. "Thirty-five hundred yen for a set of five! Fifty sets in all! Mix and match for a complete collection!" If Nabiki had enough time, she would have sent the photos out and had trading cards made. 

In the infirmary, Ranma-kun sat bolt upright as a chill went down his spine, accompanied by a fit of sneezing. The dreadful feeling that everyone in school must be talking about him went through him. Sadly, that was not really an uncommon occurrence. Once he had himself under control, he looked around and figured out where he was. Akane rushed in through the curtain, isolating the bed Ranma had been laying in. The look of concern on her face sent a second chill of foreboding through him. Asking himself what he was doing in the infirmary, without a raging headache, he suddenly recalled his last conscious sight. He groaned. 

            "Ranma!? Are you alright?" Akane blurted.

            "Don't tell me it was real," he moaned.

            "The copies?"

            He nodded. The image of the two tangled in the most passionate of kisses flashed as he closed his eyes. That was bad enough. The memory of what he had felt, while looking at them was worse. First had been dismay. They had gone off at the first opportunity and started THAT up again. Second had been shock at THAT going on between two people his mind insisted were both him, despite the fact that he had been outside of it. Third had been a flush of heated emotions. Longing, envy, jealousy, as the memory of being kissed was summoned, accompanied by the warm thrill of caressing hands. Why did something so horrible have to feel so damned good? Feeling good was such a rare treasure, that his traitor mind savored it even as it screamed against the realization of where and what he had been in the matter. Some unconscious part of him, unbound by gender, wanted to pound the jerk for his betrayal, wanted to rip out her hair and gouge at her eyes for stealing the jerk's attention. Those fleeting emotions might as well have been a wild cat set loose inside his skull, as Ranma's wits tried to flee in abject terror. 

            Akane was biting her lip, unsure if she should confirm or deny the event. There was no choice, Ranma would never hear the end of this, the rumors would spread without mercy. "I am sorry. It was real."

            "What happened?"

            "Uh… I think the shock stopped your heart," she murmured, wondering why he would have such a strong reaction. The scene had not been that different from the scene on the train, the day before. 

            "Yeah, well, if you walked up and saw yourself doin' something like that, how would you react?"

            "I would never!"

            "That's not the point. I don't care who they really are. They look like me. What if you had looked in the mirror?"

            "I suppose that would be… disturbing," Akane frowned. 

            Ranma climbed down off the bed/examining table. "I hope you didn't leave them alone," he turned to look at Akane, concern on his face. She nodded, shook her head, then explained that Ukyo had stayed to keep an eye on them. Ranma cocked his head, "Ucchan? Do you think she can handle both of them?"

            "Uh. They didn't look like they were planning on going anywhere."

            "You idiot! You let them go on doin' that!?"

            "You ungrateful jerk! I had to bring you here!"

            "I would have been fine, you stupid tom-boy! You'd think you'd realize that keeping those two apart is more important than moonin' over me!"

            "I wasn't 'mooning' over you, you perverted ego-maniac!"

            "You sexless tom-boy!"

            "Shut up, you sex-crazed sicko!"

            "In your dreams!"

            "Baka!!!" Akane snatched up the stool by the bed and wrapped it around Ranma-kun's head with the force of the impact. Across the room, the nurse was gaping at the pair, eyes bulging out of her skull. Where had the contrite, concerned girl gone, and how did this demon of vengeance take her place?

            "Uh, didn't you just bring him in here to be treated?" she asked in a shaky voice. Akane turned on her, prepared to spit venom, when the question penetrated.

            "Oh! That idiot!"

            "Kawaiikune," Ranma's voice drifted up from where he had slumped down on the other side of the bed. Making a wide berth around Akane, the nurse went over and helped Ranma climb back up onto the bed. While she quickly checked him for broken bones or a concussion, Ranma sat there making faces at Akane, sticking out his tongue. Akane simmered and stuck her tongue out before stomping out into the hall. "She is so not cute. Wish I knew what her problem is."

            The nurse sighed and shrugged. "There seems to be no serious damage. I don't know how you kids can hand out and take so much abuse," she made some notes on a chart and looked one last time at Ranma. "I don't see any reason to keep you here or send you home. Lunch is in a few minutes. If you don't want to end up back in here by your next class, you might want to think of being a little more… tactful the next time you speak to that girl."

            "You're kidding me, right?"

            The nurse just sighed and shook her head, gesturing to the door for him to show himself out. Ranma stretched his neck and shoulders and hopped down from the bed. Why did everyone always tell him to be nice and make up whenever Akane pounded him? He was the one owed an apology, not her. If anyone needed tact, it was little-miss-bludgeoning-device. 

            Akane was waiting in the hall. She turned as soon as he exited the infirmary and started walking back to class. Ranma followed, sullenly, and they arrived as the bell rang. They went in to collect their lunches and followed the crowd outside to eat. Ukyo saw them coming outside and waved them over. She had her portable grill set up and was selling okonomiyaki to the students, Copy-chan and Copy-kun were parked next to her snatching up every other okonomiyaki that came off the grill. The copies carried on as if food was the only thing on their mind, so Ranma turned his attention to his friend.

            "Hey, Ucchan! Thanks for keepin' an eye on these two."

            "No problem, Ranchan. Care for one of my specialties?"

            "Thanks!"

            Akane sniffed and moved to the side to eat her lunch in privacy, where she could keep an eye on the clones. Her mind was busy warring over the concern and fury her fiancé had been inspiring in her. More than ever she wanted to pound the daylights out of him, but too often of late this bizarre vulnerability had revealed itself in him. She did not want to kill him, but the glimmering of the idea that Ranma could be killed as easily as anyone else was starting to worm its way through her head. She was dangerously close to wondering, as many of her peers had already wondered, how he ever managed to survive her typical onslaught. Unable to stomach the notion of not hitting Ranma, it was better to keep a little distance so she would not have any need to hit him. 

            Nabiki wandered up, as Ranma busily tore through his bento and a steady stream of okonomiyakis (hard fought over, and hard won from the clutches of his duplicates). The middle Tendo daughter paused to examine the still unconscious forms of the Kuno siblings, before coming up to chat with Ukyo. Nabiki was still collecting food, as payment for a bet Ukyo had lost months earlier. Oddly, Nabiki was civil about collecting, since Ukyo was so cheerful about the whole business of food prep and service. Today, Ukyo grinned up at Nabiki.

            "Hello, Ukyo. You look happy to see me today!"

            "Heya, Nabiki! I have a question, and you're just the person to ask!"

            "I see," Nabiki grinned. After extorting a "consultation fee" she urged the chef to ask her question. Ukyo explained the strange statement Kodachi made during the fight. 

            "She claimed to have come over here to collect on a bet. Since you seem to be on top of all the wagering and such at Furinkan, I thought you might know what the hell she was talking about."

            "Ah, that. Yes, I do know about this bet."

            "And?"

            Nabiki shrugged. "I answered your question, right?"

            "I haven't asked it yet!"

            "Oh, well then, go ahead."

            "What was the bet?"

            Nabiki considered that. "Each of the Kuno's placed a million-yen bet that they would see, with witness testimony, Ranma and the 'Pig-tailed-girl' together, side-by-side so to speak, at the same time and place by the end of the school term." This got the interest of many people, who came up to get more details. Over the course of the next fifteen minutes, Nabiki had extorted money from half of those present to fully disclose the details of the whole arrangement.

            "Wow. Nabiki actually lost a bet."

            "That's gotta hurt! Two million!?"

            "There's gotta be a catch!"

            "Yeah. Like, they had to take them on a double date, be seen by everyone in town, or go to the prom together with them, right?"

            "Honestly," Nabiki tapped her lip thoughtfully, "No. Nice idea though. A bit dangerous. I don't know if I would want all of that on my conscience. The fallout from the attempt would be staggering." 

            Seeing the downed forms of the Kunos twitching in preparation to awake, Nabiki quickly left instructions for both of them to be directed to her classroom once they fully revived. She suggested that nothing Ranma shaped be around to distract the deranged siblings, since she did have business to conduct with them.

            "What? You mean you're actually going to pay them?"

            "Of course. It would ruin my reputation, as well as my prospects, to get caught welshing on a bet. Don't be ridiculous." With that she reentered the school. Ranma, Akane and Ukyo grabbed the twins and dragged them back to their own classroom. None of them were particularly interested in being around for the awakening of Tatewaki and Kodachi. 

After several minutes of long-winded pontification, the Kunos received the message to meet Nabiki in the classroom she shared with Tatewaki to conduct the business of settling the bet. After another twenty minutes spent by the pair tracking down, and dragging the two clones out of Ranma and Akane's classroom, they confronted Nabiki. Fortunately, Ranma had ducked out of sight, or rather out the window, at the sound of the siblings' approach, so further confusion was prevented. Hanging down and peering in through the top of the window into Nabiki's homeroom, Ranma eavesdropped on the meeting. Akane had gone with the copies, both to keep an eye on them, and to act as Kuno's "impartial witness" while some poor helpless slob, that is Hikaru Gosenkugi, was nabbed by Kodachi to serve as hers. 

            The six came into the middle of the room and stood in front of Nabiki. She was seated at the teacher's desk with a large lock box at her elbow. A group of her factors were lined up behind her. 

            "So, I see you wanted to make this absolutely clear," she began without preamble, seeing the clones standing uncomfortably between the two. She looked at them for a moment and then turned to Akane. "Does that look like Ranma and the Pig-tailed-girl to you?" Akane nodded. Nabiki repeated the question to Gosunkugi, who eeped and nodded rapidly. "And do you both agree that they are present here, side-by-side, in the same place at the same time?" More nods. Nabiki stood then. "Good. I think that satisfies the terms of the bet. If the rest of you would please clear out of the room, Kuno Tatewaki and Kuno Kodachi have private business to conclude with me." With surprise, everyone began to file out of the room. The Kunos' looked reluctant to allow the objects of their mixed obsessions leave their sight, but business was business. It was quite a coup to win a bet with Nabiki. They had to savor their moment. 

            Once the room was cleared, the factors having dropped the blinds and sealed the windows and doors before exiting, Nabiki cleared her throat and pushed the lock box forward. "Two million yen. Feel free to count it and divide it amongst yourselves." She inserted the key, and opened the lid. Ranma adjusted his position until he could peer through a crack in the blinds. There on top of the money was a manila file folder. Nabiki quickly gasped and snatched it away. "Ah, heh. That was not part of the pay off," she quickly explained, trying to shove the file into her school bag. Prominently lettered on the front, were the words, "Ranma/Pig-tailed-girl" in bold letters.

            The siblings caught the writing as the folder slipped out of sight. 

            "What is that, pray tell," Kuno inquired.

            Nabiki looked at him. "I'm sorry? What are you referring to?"

            "That file. It appears to have something to do with my beloved goddess, and that foul sorcerer, Saotome," he elucidated. 

            "I too would like to know what important information you have about them, so carefully locked away," Kodachi importuned.

            "Oh. This?" Nabiki pulled out the folder again. "It's nothing really. I mean, you surely would not be interested in knowing why those two are in love with each other," she waved her hand, as if the very idea was preposterous. "Or how to break them apart," she added, nonchalantly. 

            "I would beg to differ. If you possess such information, I would desire greatly to know of it."

            "I am sorry, Kuno-chan," Nabiki sighed and looked down. "This information was very difficult to obtain. Just covering the costs of obtaining it would be exorbitant. I certainly could not just give it away. Please, just take your money, and we'll pretend this other matter never came up."

            Kodachi's eyes narrowed and her nimble fingers produced a ribbon, which snapped out and plucked the folder from Nabiki's hands. Nabiki stood there in surprise, staring over at Kodachi as she flipped the folder open and looked inside. A moment later she crumpled the folder in anger and glared at Nabiki.

            "You deceitful little peasant! There was nothing in that folder!"

            Nabiki blinked. "Of course not. I wouldn't write such valuable information down," she scoffed and tapped her temple. "The information is all up here. The folder was just to remind me from time to time so I didn't forget it."

            "How disgustingly clever," Kodachi pouted.

            "I hate you," Kuno calmly informed Nabiki.

            "I am so glad," she returned, eyes half lidded.

            "Clearly, I cannot dismiss the possibility of learning, at long last, how to free my beloved Pig-tailed-goddess from the sordid clutches of that demon, Saotome. Whatever the costs you incurred to obtain this priceless information, I shall repay you ten fold, were you to disclose to me the salvation of mine heart."

            "I too should pay any price to break the power of that lewd wench over the heart of my dear Ranma-sama," Kodachi seconded.

            "Well, Kuno," Nabiki sighed, "you are correct in that this information is priceless. But to offer ten-fold the costs to me to obtain it is indeed generous. Perhaps too generous."

            "Surely I can afford it."

            "Yes! How great were these expenses?"

            "Ironically," Nabiki dragged it out. "The total comes to two-million-yen," she finally announced, dramatically, pointing her finger at Kodachi. 

            The siblings turned to gape at each other. Turning back to Nabiki, they gulped and pulled at their collars. "Ah," Kuno began, sweating. "Indeed, that is quite an investment to make in such a worthy pursuit. Alas, as I have seen with mine own eyes, it is imperative that I intervene with great haste to preserve the chastity of my fair maiden. Twenty-million yen is a sizeable sum…"

            "Forty-million," Nabiki interrupted calmly.

            "Ah, yes. Forty-million yen is a handsome sum of cash for a mere student, even one so noble and powerful as myself, to carry upon one's person." In the background, Ranma was staring with eyes as big as dinner plates as he watched Nabiki extorting amounts he could only dream of. That much money would be sufficient for a down-payment on a small house, or a decent sized apartment! Kodachi was twitching herself. 

            Nabiki sighed and looked down. "So. You see, it really is best to just forget about this. There are, after all, other fish in the sea."

            "Hold, Tendo Nabiki. I am a man of my word, and if I say ten-fold, I mean ten-fold," he bent over and shared a few quiet, terse words with his sister. After a moment he turned back to Nabiki. "I was merely pointing out that it was a great deal of money to produce under such pressing circumstances. I must have that information at once, but I must beg you to allow us to make a down payment, and give full restitution once we have the leisure to adjust our finances." Kodachi nodded grimly, her teeth clenched and face flushed. 

            Nabiki raised an eyebrow. "What do you propose?"

            Kuno closed the lid of the lock-box and pushed it toward Nabiki. Reaching into his hakama, he withdrew his wallet, and Kodachi did the same. They emptied both on top of the lock box. "We have here two-million-five-hundred-thousand yen. If you would kindly accept this, and our assurances of the rest to come, in exchange for the information forthwith, you would be entirely in our gratitude."

            Nabiki looked down at the money. Outside, there was a distant crash as Ranma lost his toehold and dropped to the ground in shock. Nabiki made a good show of thinking hard. Finally she nodded. "As this is sufficient to cover my own costs, I see no reason not to be generous." She opened her book bag and pulled out some paperwork. She made some alterations to her usual contract, and presented them to the siblings for review. "Because your offer is so generous, I have waived my usual interest fee on signed debts. The balance shown is seventeen-million-two-hundred and fifty-thousand yen for each of you. Payment is for services rendered, to be left unspecified to preserve the integrity of the information. I will relate to you, in person, what you have requested, and urge you to protect your investment against others who would also desire this information. Is that agreeable?"

            The Kunos nodded and scanned the documents before signing them. 

            Nabiki smiled, opening the lock-box and placing the additional cash inside and then sealed it. "Excellent. Now. Listen closely you two," Nabiki turned to the two of them, collecting the forms and taking a seat behind the desk. They pulled up a couple of chairs and listened intently. "The two individuals you dragged in here earlier," she indicated Copy-chan and Copy-kun, knowing her audience would make the proper assumptions about their identities, "are both under compulsion. A curse, to be specific, is responsible for their obsession with each other."

            "I knew it!" the two cried out.

            "Yes. Well, it is a strange thing, but stranger things have happened. It is important to note that neither of them is at fault for this. An outside influence is responsible for binding them together. If you were to approach them, under the right circumstances, they will assure you that they have no love for each other. The compulsion upon both of them is for them to find love. Because they share this compulsion, they are drawn to each other, in search of the same thing. They have a great deal more than this in common, so this attraction is reinforced, making it difficult for anyone who truly loves them to draw them away from each other."

            "This is truly extraordinary news!"

            "So you are saying that they might be drawn apart by two who love them?" Kodachi's eyes were shining. 

            "Oh, it's not enough to just profess your love. If your affections are false, then the curse will not be satisfied. Only true love can break the spell. That means you must earn their trust! If you threaten one, the other will lash out at you. This is no easy matter to break." Nabiki was beginning to enjoy this. She doubted the pair could control themselves well enough to overcome their respective psychoses, but they might distract the clones enough for the rest of them to get through the end of the week. 

            "Clearly, this is a matter of great delicacy," Kuno pronounced.

            "You have given us new hope! Thank you, Tendo Nabiki!" Kodachi spouted. The two rose, positive of the value of this latest investment. It suited their warped minds to think that the path to victory was sure. By pursuing the unlikely path of wooing the objects of their hearts' desires, and offering no threat to the counterparts of such, they would triumph without resorting to a single blow! 


	8. Secrets and Revelations

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Eight: Secrets and Revelations

Nabiki stood and collected her things as the Kuno siblings rushed out of the classroom in search of Ranma and the Pig-tailed-girl. Her factors trickled in as the psychotic pair bounded down the hall. Nabiki accompanied them to a secure room where she could redistribute the cash she had used to bait Tatewaki and Kodachi. Once the betting and lottery pools, as well as the dojo's mortgage funds, were restored, she locked the cash-box and stashed it where it belonged. Because of the urgency of the situation, she had allowed her factors a much greater glimpse into her financial practices than normal, but they would not be her trusted factors if she did not have enough on them to ensure they could be trusted. That was not all she had to threaten them with either. It was amazing to realize how much collateral she got out of holding both debts and family influence over Ranma Saotome. Of course, that was like owning a gun. She never intended to use it, and if she ever needed to, she probably would not have time. A gun was also a lot safer to mess with. 

            Angels looked down on Nabiki and shuddered.

            Nabiki sneezed. Her train of thought suddenly broken, she found herself wondering about Ranma. By her own standards, she was doing him several favors, and the Kunos were kindly footing the bill. Would her one-day-brother-in-law appreciate it? Or even realize it? No doubt she would have to explain how, by exploiting the presence of the copies, she had managed to divert the twice unwanted attentions of Kuno and Kodachi while also distracting the copies from their obsession with each other, and its inevitable drift toward him. 

            Ranma, for his part, had missed the conclusion of Nabiki's little meeting, and had no idea what was coming. All he had managed to overhear suggested that Nabiki was offering to sell them information about his curse, and of course the pair were so dense it never worked. Just the same, he would play along again, and see if the cost of learning it made the truth go down any better. So, when the siblings spotted him entering the school and rushed over toward him, he resisted the urge to flee. Their faces were unusually sober, if typically determined, and they slowed to a walk before reaching him. Ranma felt his optimism rise as, for once, it looked like they intended to be civil.

            "Saotome," Kuno greeted him, putting a hand on his sister's shoulder to restrain her more enthusiastic greeting. She glanced at him, and decided to let him speak. "It has come to my attention that you are bound to the Pig-tailed-girl by a curse. Is this true?"

            "Kuno-sempai, I…" Ranma could not help his surprise. "I… that is, yes. This has always been the case. I am sorry," he bowed, amazed that the upper-classman seemed to understand and yet had not blown up over it. 

            "To think that this matter could be resolved so simply with words," Kuno mused aloud. "Tell me this then. Is it also true that you do not love the Pig-tailed-girl?"

            "Of course not! Don't be ridiculous!" Ranma denied on pure reflex. He straightened in growing confusion. If Kuno understood the curse, that was a very strange question to ask. Then again, the kendoist always spoke in an absurd manner. 

            "I see. Truly this is most enlightening. Pray tell, would it be reasonable to say that you would even try to rid yourself of her?"

            Ranma stared at him. It was probably too much to ask that Kuno understood perfectly. Maybe he thought that the curse was like some form of possession. Ranma shrugged, "I guess you could say I've been trying to get rid of her since I was cursed. I've tried all sorts of stuff, but nothin' seems to ever work. It's done nothing but get me into trouble."

            Kuno nodded regally. "If this is the truth, then, I can see no other option but to forgive our rivalry. Forsooth there is no need for us to quarrel in this matter. Indeed, I see now that you are a helpless victim, and I assure you I will stand by your side in this matter. Alas, to be bound to a woman against one's will is to have all the joys and mysteries of womanhood become as ash, a hateful condition."

            Ranma actually flinched at how… insightful… that comment seemed. 

            Kodachi spoke up, "My poor Ranma-sama. To have that deceitful embodiment of femininity imposed upon you. That her presence denies you the love of a true woman, such as myself, is tragic!" She slipped into a dramatic pose, biting on a handkerchief while tears flowed down her cheeks. Ranma found himself sweating nervously and backing carefully away from them. 

            "Well, uh" he rubbed the back of his head. "I am glad you understand now. Uh. I have to get to class. Excuse me." He edged around them and then rushed around a corner, headed towards the stairwell. He almost ploughed though a group of girls crowding the bottom of the stairs. As he skidded to a stop, one of them casually opened a bottle of water and tipped it over his head. As he changed, they all sagged and sighed.

            "It's just Ranma. The other one must have already gone to class," the girl with the water bottle moped. As one, they turned and went up the stairs. Ranma, fuming, turned and raced for the nearest bathroom. She did not want to be a girl for the rest of the day. Naturally, she had forgotten about the Kunos. She noticed them as they rushed forward to block her path. 

            "Pig-tailed-girl! Wait!" Kuno implored. 

            "What is it now?"

            Kodachi pushed her brother out of the way. "We beg your pardon. We simply need to converse with you a moment."

            Ranma's eyes narrowed, and her face went blank. It had been too much to hope that she could get away before the siblings started to go all weird on her again. Taking a deep breath, she motioned them to speak, "Go on."

            "Only recently, my brother and I have become aware of your curse," the gymnast began, pausing as Ranma-chan covered her face with her hand and sighed. Interpreting this as a gesture of shame, Kodachi's eyes widened. It was, in her mind, the most feminine thing her rival had ever done. For the first time, her mind allowed her to recognize the many, vehement protestations she had made against having a relationship with Ranma. _Perhaps_, she thought to herself, _I have misjudged her_. Taking a more comforting tone, she continued, "I don't mean to rub your face in it. It is obvious now that you resent your curse. 

            "How should I put this?" Kodachi interrupted herself. "Do you love Ranma?" Before her, the red-hair girl straightened, shifting instantly from "maidenly shame" to righteous indignation. 

            "I've told you before, I am Ranma!" Ranma-chan snarled.

            Kodachi's eyes widened again. She snapped her fingers, _That's right, she has the same name as Ranma! _This fact had been revealed at the Rhythmic Gymnastics Martial Arts Championship, the week after she had first encountered them._ How incredibly awkward! Still, Saotome is a fairly common family name, and anyone who dared to give their child a name like "Wild Horse" would naturally assume it was unique. _Shaking her head, she moved past that, "Of course, of course. You must forgive me, I am in the habit of being very vexed at you and refusing to call you by the name I reserve for my delicious Ranma-sama!"

            Kuno elbowed his sister in the ribs, stopping her from deviating into one of her fits of romantic excess.

            Clearing her throat, while the red-haired girl stared at her, she tried once more to think of a way to address her question. "Surely, you understand that I am referring to the boy Ranma? I mean, you honestly can't kiss him and pretend that he doesn't exist, now matter how bizarre the circumstances that brought you together!"

            Ranma wilted, but could not let this pass, "First of all, Ranma is MY name and he has no rights to it," she growled. The addition of the copies did complicate the matter. She was beginning to understand why Kuno and Kodachi were after her for more of an explanation. That was something she really did not want to talk about, but if they had already heard about the boy jumping her in the bathroom they already knew the worst. Squaring her shoulders, she tried to set the record straight. "Second, he got to me when my guard was down. _He_ kissed _me_. It makes me sick to think about it!"

            "So, you don't love him? You want nothing to do with him?"

            "No way! Absolutely not!" Ranma-chan raved. 

            Ranma stood there, bristling in indignation before the siblings. They exchanged a look and nodded.

            "Very well. I think you for indulging our curiosity. Perhaps my feelings toward you have been misplaced," Kodachi concluded, bowing. Nabiki's claim had been established by both participants, or so they assumed. Nothing more needed to be said until she and her brother came up with a plan to deal with this unholy union of Ranma and the Pig-tailed-girl. They turned and walked calmly away, leaving Ranma-chan standing there feeling strangely unsettled. Then the bell for the first afternoon class rang, and she was racing upstairs, forced to report late and as a girl. 

Believing that the long misunderstandings with Kuno and Kodachi had finally been cleared up, Ranma spent the rest of the school day in a cheerful mood. While most of his fellow students, including Akane and Ukyo, were mystified about the change, many of them attributing it to things that would cause Akane to knock Ranma clear to Jupiter, the copies themselves were encouraged by it. During the class breaks, they pulled Ranma off into a corner to argue their case. They were only partially successful, because their attempts to explain their investigations into the topic of making love were cut off instantly. They did manage to explain that they had learned that they had been going about things the wrong way. Intrigued, Ranma listened to their rationale for the scene before lunch. Explaining that they had put aside the matter of making love to focus on earlier steps, like dating and flirting, and agreed to take precautions to avoid mistaking Ranma for one of them, they asked for permission to try an official date, since their unofficial date had produced unintended results.

            After clarifying that the pair did not intend to dive straight into making love, Ranma decided that allowing them to date might be a reasonable solution. If the two could be trusted to go off alone together, and not do anything too serious, he just might get a bit of a break. Of course his own experience with dating was a bit eccentric. Because making out and heavy petting were also part of foreplay, and foreplay was part of making love, they neglected to introduce them as features of the normal dating process in their minds. 

            With his limited understanding of the couple's intentions, Ranma went over to Akane and filled her in on the plan. Ranma had decided to let the clones have the afternoons free for dating purposes. Akane, suspicious of anything boy-girl oriented, questioned this idea, but eventually relented. Spending twenty-four hours a day keeping an eye on the clones was too much to bear. She agreed to the plan on the "no-making-love" stipulation. The copies welcomed this official sanction and found it easy to contain themselves for the remainder of school. At the end of classes, Akane suggested they stop Nabiki before she went home and pick up their "commissions" so they could pay for their date. Curious, they followed these instructions, amazed when Nabiki casually handed them twenty-thousand-yen and warned them not to spend it all in one place with a sly smile. 

            "What's this 'commission' thing all about?" Ranma-chan demanded, unable to believe Nabiki had given money away without any kind of loan agreement or conditions. 

            "Hmm? Oh, did I forget to explain this to you?" Nabiki grinned. Ranma narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. Nabiki pulled out her ledger and opened it. "As you know, I am an entrepreneur. I see opportunities to make money, and grab them. From time to time, this means marketing a sellable commodity. I can't make money off of people without giving something back, right? People would say I was using them if I did that." Ranma stared with growing scorn. 

            "Are you callin' me a commodity?"

            "Ranma! You're my most profitable venture!"

            "Ah, so. And this 'commission' business?"

            "Well, technically, you earn a two percent share of the net profits, on deposit with me, since you have numerous debts and expenses I am required to manage," Nabiki smiled. 

            "You just gave them money! You never give me money!"

            "They asked for it. You can't blame me if you never pick up your commission. Don't worry, that money is working for you. Working very hard," Nabiki emphasized with big eyes and much nodding. 

            "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

            "It means, after deducting the minimum payments from your outstanding debts, you own shares in a number of business ventures managed by me." Nabiki looked at Ranma with the pride of a great financial wizard lauding the merits of an excellent portfolio.

            "I don't even know what you're talking about! Do I get money from you?"

            "Huh! Well, if you think you can manage it better than me, I suppose you do. Do you want to liquidate or just collect your week's disbursement?"

            "Uh. That liquid thing… No offense, but that sorta thing kinda rubs me the wrong way. I guess that week thing, that's what you gave them, right?"

            "Pretty sharp, Ranma-chan! Might be some hope for you yet!"

            "Uh. Sure. Is it a lot?"

            "You could say that today has been a very profitable day, so, yeah. It's pretty decent. Of course, I can't give you all of it, because I still have to collect payment, but I can give you an advance. That alright?"

            "I don't know. Whenever I talk money with you, I feel like there's someone behind me with a skinning knife. Are you sure this isn't going to cost me?"

            "Relax, Ranma! For once you're in the black. Avoid any serious property damage this week, and you'll be fine," Nabiki assured him. "Here. That's fifty-thousand-yen. Now, go on, have fun."

            "Uh. Wow. Thanks, Nabiki," Ranma looked at the wad of money in her hands with awe. Nabiki smiled at him, and walked outside, whistling cheerfully. The crowd that stood around them while this conversation occurred hung their heads and wandered after her to find out who won the lesser bets in the pool. 

            Nabiki was just happy. Most of the school knew she paid kick-backs to people she profited off of, but Ranma had never collected. She had bet half the school that Ranma would not even inquire about his share of the loot unless someone pointed the option out to him. It had paid off in two ways, since anyone who placed a bet would not dare mention the system to him, and in the end, because half the school had bet heavily that he would figure it out on his own. The other bets had been over how long it would take him, one way or the other, to get his first kick-back. Those bets had been by random lottery, since Nabiki would not allow anyone to fudge the main bet to collect on a lesser one. 

            None of this mattered to Ranma. She was suddenly rich, and free of molestation from no less than five people. Happosai was still trapped in the mirror, Kuno and Kodachi were finally clued in (or at least distracted from her), and the copies were off on a date. She grabbed Akane and dragged her away at top speed, seeking out her favorite restaurant and ice cream parlor before the cash could burn a hole in her pocket. 

            Nabiki remained in front of the school until the Kuno siblings made their next appearance. They greeted Nabiki formally, but with less than characteristic coolness. Having verified her story, they felt no qualms about going with the middle Tendo daughter to the bank to complete the transaction started during lunch. They escorted her to the bank, courtesy of a ride in the family limo. After forty-five minutes, Nabiki was forty-million-yen in the black and feeling generous. She suggested the three of them stop for coffee, so she could give them a free update on the Ranma/Pig-tailed-girl situation. Naturally, the siblings took her to a high class café and picked up the tab.

            Sipping her coffee, Nabiki glanced over the rim of the cup at the pair. They were too wired to enjoy their own drinks, so she decided to get right to business. "I assume you caught each of them alone and verified my information," she began, knowing from her spies at school all about their confrontations with Ranma. The boy-girl was so ingenious, she could always rely on him to give people the right wrong impressions. "I caution you, however, that the matter is often more difficult. They do have very excitable personalities, and rise instantly to a challenge, so it is important to be very discrete with them, or you will end up in a fight as fast as you can blink. 

            "The important thing to remember is that they are in love with the idea of being in love. Obsessed with finding someone to love them. When they've been together, this is sort of reinforced," she took a sip and studied the pair. They were listening intently. "My advice is to proceed calmly. They're both pretty honest when you are civil with them, so if you ask them, they'll give you an honest answer. You want to challenge the basis of their 'love' for each other. Get them to admit that it's a compulsion."

            "Yes. Those were my thoughts on the matter," Kuno nodded.

            "Is there anything else you can tell us?" Kodachi entreated.

            "Well, just that the two of them went off on a date after school," Nabiki took another sip as the pair bolted out of the restaurant. Very casually, she began nibbling at her double-chocolate fudge cake between gulps of coffee. As she was finishing her treats, the siblings returned to the café and settled across from her at the table. She looked up and smiled patiently. 

            Kuno regained his breath and asked, "You would not, perchance, know where they have embarked on this perilous venture, would you?"

            "I have a few ideas," she offered, rising from her seat. 

Even though Hiroshi and Daisuke had provided a veritable catalogue of suitable dating spots, Copy-chan and Copy-kun had wordlessly agreed on a trip to the park. As most of the student body of Furinkan suffered from perpetual losses in Nabiki's betting pools, the park was a popular destination for young couples. The copies noticed the abundance of paired activity and spent a while wandering the park and observing. After a couple of circuits, they had begun to get a fair notion of what flirting entailed. In some respects, it was almost more fun to watch than to perform, because the reactions were so interesting. After careful consideration, and much debate, the couple decided that flirting consisted largely of working up the nerve to initiate and sustain physical contact. It was not unlike feeling out an opponent in a combat. Move too soon, or too quickly, and you get hit. Move too late, and the opportunity was gone. As most of those observed seemed to be easily distracted, the clones concluded that part of the difficulty of dating was a lack of discipline and perception. 

For them, reading another's body language was a well developed talent. If they had actually endured Ranma's upbringing, they would have called it a skill. However, the awkwardness of flirting had its endearments. There was an element of play in it, and quite clearly the flirting couples were having fun despite their frustrations. 

            Once they had their fill of observation, they filed most of it away and sought out a private spot to pursue the art of making out. As they had discovered in the school yard, making out did give their bodies ideas about what to do next, as kissing and hugging led to caressing. By natural progression, caressing would inevitably lead to more intimate exploration, under the right circumstances, which explained why getting a partner alone was so important in making love. 

            Remembering that talking was a big part of dating, they shared their thoughts and impressions about what they were doing and how it felt as they proceeded to make out. Naturally, they followed the traditions of their art, drawing parallels between techniques designed to hurt, incapacitate or kill an opponent and a new frontier of techniques to please, enthrall and… could there be an outcome as powerful, as profound as death, in the art of making love? If the parallels of pain and pleasure were anything to go by, it seemed almost plausible that the art of love could some how sow life, to balance the art of war's potential to sow death. For two who felt in their bones their capacity to destroy people, the capacity to create people was staggering in its implications. 

            "I am really startin' to hate not havin' a clue," Copy-kun grumbled. 

            "It'd be nice to know more about how the world works," Copy-chan agreed. "Imagine the shock if we'd blundered ahead and accidentally created a person? I mean think about it, the Art makes one very skilled at destroying people, but anyone can blunder into killing someone entirely by accident. In fact, it's a lot more likely if you don't know what you're doin'! It's a good thing people were messin' with us or we might have… uh… er… what's the opposite of being killed?"

            "Um. Being born, I think," Copy-kun searched his mind. 

            "Right! So, there you have it. If they hadn't stopped us, then next thing you know, bam! Someone gets born!" Copy-chan shook her head. Birth and death were pretty abstract concepts for her, since she'd never been close to seeing or doing either. It really surprised her that her head had not contained any warning that making love could have such an outcome. That association was only there for something filed under sex. Since she had not been thinking of birth, and it did not take any thought to recognize that she was a girl, she had totally missed that warning. 

            Copy-chan blinked. She ran through her thoughts again. Closing her eyes and gripping her head in one hand, she struggled to make sense out of the tangle of ideas she had inherited. Sex had a lot of strange associations past the principle meaning she found, the difference between male and female. Now she looked through them. The one she had tripped over was some vague warning which had been a bit perplexing. Like, what makes a girl a girl is her sex. If a girl has sex, she can get pregnant. Pregnancy leads to birth. By that logic, a girl ought to spontaneously produce babies, and therefore the whole chain of association was filed under "irrational". There was no preexisting "make love" area of thought, because the whole notion of making love had come to her when she first wondered how to find love. That led her to investigate "making love" and reach this latest idea. With a click, the strange associations with "sex" all clicked into place, and the world turned on its ear.

            Copy-kun stared at her, as her eyes bugged out and her mouth flapped in wordless epiphany. She grabbed the front of this shirt, shaking him, trying to will him to understand this revelation too. 

            "What is it!? You're scarin' me!"

            "It… it's sex!" she gasped. "Sex is the opposite of killing! Sex is making love! Sex is… is… ohmigod!" she covered her mouth as hundreds of things that she did not remember hearing suddenly became understood. 

            Unable to understand her hysterics, Copy-chan leaned back. Sighing and closing his eyes, he asked himself what could be so exciting about sex. A girl's a girl, a boy's a boy. Big deal. Gears began to whir. A few minutes later, he was gasping along with her, as his mind dutifully unraveled the mystery of life. Thus, it was to the sight of the pair of them, sprawled on the ground, eyes wild, breath coming ragged, hair standing on end while they muttered about sex, that Nabiki, Kuno and Kodachi finally intruded.

            Nabiki raised an eyebrow. "Who dropped the bomb?"

            "Sex!" Copy-chan shouted at her, her face full of meaning. 

            "…Drugs and rock and roll," Nabiki muttered, taking the opening impulsively. "You look like you're about to fall off the planet, Copy-chan. Take a deep breath and tell me what's got you so excited."

            "Sex!" Copy-kun grabbed Nabiki's leg, looking up at her feverishly. 

            "Down boy. I don't do requests." 

            "They're raving," Kodachi muttered, twisting away in dismay, arms and legs bent as if she were contemplating running away in haste. She then marched over to Copy-kun and pried his hands off of Nabiki. "Oh, Ranma-sama, so distraught by this vile compulsion, you would grab anything to pull yourself away! How noble!" As she moved to glomp him, Copy-chan reached out and snagged his pig-tail, snatching her better half out of the gymnast's hands. 

            For a moment, everyone stood still. 

            The copies, remembering the Kuno siblings attacking them earlier, quickly collected their wits and got to their feet. Though they appeared to just be standing there casually, Kuno, Kodachi and Nabiki all recognized that the martial artists were on guard. Kodachi composed herself, remembering that she and her brother needed to approach these two cautiously.

            Kuno looked the copies up and down, and then proceeded, "Even as the sight of such unbecoming intimacy, as once more I have found you indulging, strikes deep into my wounded heart, know I strive to remember that you cannot help yourselves. Oh, the tragedy, two youths driven into desperate embraces by unholy powers! Verily, the Heavens must tear asunder and weep at this atrocity." Kuno raised his hand and pointed at the couple. "Oft I have struck out in ignorance, and e'en now you cringe, forced by passions you cannot control to stand against me. But hear this, I am here to help, not harm."

            "Huh?"

            "Laying in on a little thick, aren't you, Kuno-chan?"

            "I remind you two that your love is but a folly, a crass compulsion that drives you in search of salvation in love's arms," Kuno blathered on, ignoring Nabiki. "Is this not true?"

            "Uh, do you have any idea what he's talkin' about?" Copy-kun turned to look at Copy-chan. She looked back and shrugged. The boy looked back at Kuno and tried to unravel his archaic speech. "Oh," Copy-kun snapped his fingers. He leaned close to Copy-chan and whispered, "This is what Ranma was talking about last night. How it's the ghost of the noble woman is makin' us look for love." 

            Copy-chan tilted her head and nodded, before looking back at Kuno. "Yeah, that's pretty much true. What's your point?"

            "Has this unnatural attraction not brought down upon you nothing but hardship and frustration? Would it not be wiser to abandon a relationship defined only by obsession and compulsion to embrace a truer love?"

            "I'm not sure we're following you. What do you mean?"

            "I mean, to free you both from your accursed relationship, my sister and I wish to offer our love. Allow us to be the means by which this curse might be lifted," Kuno offered. Kodachi stood beside him and nodded. 

            "What my dear brother is trying to say, is that we wish to date with you. Is it not true that all you require is to find someone to love? Someone to love you?"

            "Uh. That is the idea," the copies murmured.

            "Have you found love together?"

            "Dunno. Still tryin' to figure out what love is."

            "Then let us help you," the Kunos begged. 

            Once more the copies exchanged looks. Their initial impressions of the siblings were not terribly appealing. At the same time, they were both healthy, attractive and passionate individuals. The intensity of their advances had put the copies off. Then again, people had run from them for their own overtures. Copy-chan had more experience with rejection, since her opposite had only come on to Ranma. She had wondered why people ran from her, and here she had been running from unwanted attention herself. She had not thought about it, and sensed that might be true of most people. Clearly, dating and flirting really were necessary. She grabbed Copy-kun and shared her thoughts with him. 

            "If you think about it, it's not a bad idea to give them a try. I still remember what Ranma said about us. I don't want to stop learning with you, but we might learn something more in outside relationships. I mean, they say they love us. It might be a bad idea to turn our backs if it's the real thing," she argued. Like herself, Copy-kun seemed stumped by the proposal. 

            "If you wanna give it a try, I guess I don't mind," he finally gave in.

            Turning back to the siblings, they agreed to try dating Kuno and Kodachi. The siblings erupted into instant celebration, grabbing Copy-chan and Copy-kun and dancing around the little clearing with them. While a little disturbed by the outburst, and the glomping, they reminded themselves that they had been forced to learn restraint themselves. The Kunos were probably very inexperienced. Putting smiles on their faces, straining for patience, the copies tried to share in their new partners' enthusiasm. 


	9. The Double Date of Doom

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Nine: The Double Date of Doom

The shopping district of downtown Nerima had a pleasant, outdoor mall kind of feel. Bordering one end of the largest park, a number of establishments could offer a pleasant view out their windows, or from the small tables placed on the sidewalk. The Kuno siblings had taken advantage of this to enhance the mood on their dates. Copy-chan sat across from Tatewaki at one table, and glanced occasionally over his shoulder, and that of his sister sitting with her back to them at the next table, to look at Copy-kun. His look of frustration was a mirror of her own. She sighed. The double date had started harmlessly enough. The respective couples had walked through the park, bought treats from street vendors, and now shared desserts at the ice cream parlor, while Copy-chan and Copy-kun tried to participate in the Kuno dominated conversations.

            "Kuno…" she tried once again to interrupt his tirade.

            "…there I stood, sword in hand as they came at me. One after another!" he prattled on, describing some epic battle that seemed to unfold in a realm far removed from reality.

            "Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho!" Kodachi's voice briefly drowned him out, while both copies cringed in pain at her laugh. "The silly girls cowered before me, none daring to rise up. I say to you, how utterly plebian! To dare presume to meet me in equal combat in the gymnasium! But there was no danger now, I had shown them the error of such presumption!"

            "But… aren't students supposed to compete in school competitions?" Copy-kun managed to insert, while she was taking a breath.

            "…I struck a mighty blow! The knave cowered as his bokan shattered before my astonishing skill!" Tatewaki's voice rose in volume, drowning out his sister's response to Copy-kun. "Yea, with the defeat of their champion, they hung their heads in shame and groveled before my majesty!"

            Copy-chan rolled her eyes. Her patience was running out. Standing, she made to excuse herself, but Kuno was out of his seat, his arms crushing her to his body. The air whooshed out of her lungs, and she could not draw a breath while in his grip. Straining to look up, as her vision began to waver, she noticed the look of intense passion on his face. _Does he think I was jumping into his arms in awe of his "masterful victory"? _she gasped. His hands were crawling over her as she struggled weakly in his arms. As his fingers clenched on her ass, she somehow found the strength to break his hold and step back. 

            "Watch the hands, jerk!" she bellowed, sucking in a decent breath.

            "Ah, my fiery goddess, you are so shy!" He lunged forward again.

            Copy-chan tried to jump back, but moved with such shock she could have cleared a rooftop. If, that is, Kuno had not succeeded in wrapping his arms around her waist, planting the kiss intended for her lips right in her bosom. "Kyaaaaaa!" she wiggled and pounded on his head, trying to make him stop. Beside her, she heard the distinct sound of bodies hitting the pavement as Kodachi tackled Copy-kun on his way to help her.

            "Oofff!"

            "Ranma! Darling!"

            "Stopitstopitstopit!" Copy-chan grabbed Tatewaki's hair and pulled, trying to separate his face from her body. 

            "Mo, my memmumiph mommeph!" Kuno mumbled through her shirt.

            Copy-chan was about to rip the boy's ears off. Her mind spun, trying to figure out what was going wrong with this whole date. Love struck and fickle, the clones initially responded to the fawning from their dates. It was clumsy, and invasive, but it sort of did follow the pattern of flirting. At the same time, there was nothing comforting about these physical overtures. They kept triggering fighting instincts, identifying the amorous lunging and grabbing as clear submission tactics. There was nothing seductive about it. Hell, when Ryouga had outright pinned her to the street, she had felt more responsive than she did to this!

            "Kuno! Let me go!"

            "As you wish, fair maiden," he looked up and grinned. "You have but to give me a kiss and I shall release you." 

            She looked down into his eyes and shuddered. The stipulated purpose of this date was to allow the siblings to woo them, to overcome Copy-chan and Copy-kun's affection for each other. She had come into this primed to be romanced, and maybe a little seduced. However, the constant clinging, the possessive and lewd pawing, like this, panicked her. "This isn't fun, Kuno!"

            "Oh, don't be silly. Just one little kiss," he urged.

            "Will you let go! He's startin' to scare her!" Copy-kun was shouting into Kodachi's face. Sparing a glance in his direction, Copy-chan found herself wondering how anything human could be doing such an impressive octopus impersonation. Was Kodachi a gymnast or a contortionist!?

            "Oh, Ranma-sama, fear not for my brother's Love," she importuned, straining to paint his face with little kisses. "She is in quite capable hands. As are you!" Her hands wandered, groping and pinching.

            "Capable of what! Ite! That hurts you know!"

            Copy-chan snapped her attention back to Kuno as he began nuzzling her belly. Her struggles had allowed her to worm her way up a few inches at a time, but if she continued… and he continued THAT… she did not dare struggle much more. As his face burrowed into her midsection, he found an opening in her shirt. Copy-chan stiffened, her aura exploding out of her, as his tongue darted into her belly button. Her feet instantly found purchase in his gut, as her arms descended in righteous anger. She managed to push away far enough from him that the mallet appearing in her hands came down perfectly on the top of his skull. "Kuno no HENTAI!!!" she screamed.

            "Co-chan!" Copy-kun bounced straight up, somehow shedding his Kodachi coating like a film of water, as he reached out to Copy-chan. There was no thought. The outrage, the fear, in her voice hit the "serve and protect" button in his brain. He did not mean to abandon Kodachi; though somewhere deep inside he was glad of an excuse. He had simply scooped Copy-chan into his arms and taken flight before he could remember that they were supposed to be with the Kunos. 

            "Ranma-sama! Where are you going!? Fight her evil influence! Do it for me!" Kodachi was racing after them, a storm of black rose-petals swirling away from her as she bounded along. 

            Copy-chan just held onto her counterpart and shuddered. "Don't listen, just keep going!" she breathed. She hated herself for it. It felt like running from battle. But, the overzealous and obsessive behaviors Tatewaki and Kodachi were prey to were just too alarming. Dating them could not be right if they were beginning to feel threatened by their paramours. 

            "Saotome! Return at once and unhand my voluptuous vixen!" Kuno was charging along below them, drawing his bokan. "Remember your vows to let us date you!" 

            "Vows!?" the pair snapped around to glare at him. "Nobody vowed anything! Stop puttin' words in our mouths!"

            "Among other things!" Copy-chan pointed accusingly. That was another thing that was bothering her. Kuno and his sister had bought them lots of wonderful treats, and then proceeded to try feeding them bites. That had been cute once, but the psychotic siblings had started to get "playful". A few items had tasted too weird for her to trust the next thing he tried to poke in her mouth.

            "A gentlemen's agreement is as solemn as any vow," Kuno declared.

            "You call yourself a gentleman!?" the copies shouted back. 

            "Why are you interfering, Saotome!? I have posed neither threat nor action against you, yet again you obey the foul compulsion! Do you lack the will to command your own mind!?" the kendoist challenged. That was enough to make Copy-kun whip around and drop to the ground in front of Kuno. 

            "That's low, Kuno," he growled. 

            Copy-chan blinked in surprise as her opposite shoved her into Kuno's arms. "What do you think you're doing?"

            "We made an agreement with them. I can't fight with him. I have to stay out of the way," he explained, bowing his head in mournful rage. Then, looking up at Kuno with a deadly expression, he added, "Be careful, Kuno. If you hurt her, if you even upset her, I will put an end to this."

            Kodachi, having rushed over to claim Copy-kun, gazed at this pronouncement and blinked in astonishment. It was such a manly, noble declaration, but it was made in her rival's defense. Her mind did not know what to think. She blanked out until Copy-chan's finger prodded her in the sternum.

            "That goes for you too, Kodachi," she warned. 

The couples returned to the ice cream parlor, where the copies focused on devouring their melted treats under clouds of frustration. The Kuno's remained a bit cowed for the next fifteen minutes, and then proceeded to work themselves up to obsessive levels again. Even as their warnings went largely unheeded, the copies strained to endure the remainder of the afternoon. Their dates had quickly devolved into a cycle of fight or flight efforts by each clone to escape molestation. But just enough to get breathing room and the nerve to continue. More than once, the clones were forced to cross the line to defend each other's honor, until once more they were back to back fighting each other's suitor. 

Ranma was in a good mood. Akane was in a good mood, because Ranma had been too happy to trouble with insults, and feeling generous, was paying a lot of attention to Akane. After the initial splurge on ice cream, Ranma had doused himself with hot water and dragged Akane to see a movie they had both wanted to see. They had left the ice cream parlor well ahead of the arrival of the double date, so they were still blissfully unaware of what was going on. On the walk home, Akane mused that their afternoon had been a date in all but name. Fortunately. Putting a word or a purpose on it would ruin it. Perhaps Ranma sensed that too. He simply took her hand and walked beside her on the sidewalk. Faint smiles touched their lips. Everything remained peaceful, until they got home and Ranma confronted Nabiki. 

            "Good news, Ranma-kun!" the middle Tendo daughter announced, standing in the genkan ready to pounce on them. "Your Kuno problems have been solved!"

            Ranma casually let go of Akane's hand, to scratch his head. "I gotta say it, Nabiki. I am impressed. I don't know how you got those two to see the truth," he chuckled, shaking his head.

            "Is that what's been going on? You finally got them to listen?" Akane perked up. She had been wondering what had made her fiancé so blasted cheerful. She could not believe he hadn't told her. Stupid jerk! After a narrow eyed look at Ranma, she turned to her sister. "So, what did you have to do to get them to understand?"

            Nabiki laughed, "Oh, you both give me too much credit. If anything they're more clueless than before. However," she held up a finger, "I found a way to use their insanity to help mitigate some of the insanity around here."

            "What? But they asked me about the curse and everything! It seemed like they finally got it," Ranma was beginning to lose his sunny disposition. He looked up and begged the heavens that this was not going to become complicated.

            "Well," Nabiki mused, "I'm afraid it's a little more complicated." She paused as Ranma dove onto his face. "Maybe we should sit down to discuss this, ne?" She turned and let them in to the living room. When they all sat down, and Kasumi had produced tea and snacks, Nabiki proceeded to explain. "As we all know, there is no limit to the density of the Kuno family psyche. Rather than try to penetrate it with the truth, I told them what they wanted to hear."

            At the moment, Ukyo stormed into the room, "Hey, everyone! You're not going to believe this!"

            Everyone looked up and asked what she was so excited about. 

            "The Kuno's are on a double date with your copies, Ran-chan!"

            Ranma and Akane both looked thunderstruck.

            "No way! How the hell did that happen!?"

            "The horror," Akane gasped. 

            Nabiki cleared her throat. "Take a seat, Ukyo-chan, I was just about to explain this to them," she glared at the okonomiyaki chef for spoiling the punch line. "As I was saying, I decided to kill four birds with one stone. The Kunos have always been a problem, especially for Ranma, and the copies of Ranma are potentially worse. Fortunately, these two problems cancel each other out perfectly."

            Ranma studied her, remembering the lunchtime meeting. "You set this whole thing up. You probably even told them how to take advantage of the copies' obsession. You arranged this double date," he put it all together, aloud, unable to decide if it was genius or insanity. 

            "That's about right, Ranma-kun. Like I said, you're starting to show some real promise," she praised with understated sarcasm. She caught the looks from the other girls at the table. Ukyo and Akane were a little disturbed that Nabiki had set up his clones with the Kunos. It seemed too cruel to do to anyone, even them, and they commented on it aloud. 

            "Geez, Oneechan," Akane crossed her arms and frowned. "Those two are like amnesia victims. They have no idea what they're getting into, and worse, they're modeled on a complete pervert!"

            "Hey! I'm not like that!"

            "That's a nasty thing to do, even to people you don't want to have around," Ukyo accused, allowing her words to drown out Ranma's protest. Before a fight could break out, she turned to Ranma and asked, "Is this alright with you? I mean, it's not likely to go anywhere, but now the Kunos will have a whole new level of absurdity to cling to. They'll never believe the truth now," she observed. Ranma stared at her. All the happiness from the afternoon had drained out of him, and sweat was beading on his forehead. 

            "Honestly, I think the copies are too conditioned to pound on those two to be able to seriously date them. The point is that as long as the Kunos are chasing them, you are in the clear, Ranma," Nabiki cut in before Ranma could answer Ukyo.

            "But," Ranma was worrying now, "The only reason they never hooked up with anyone but each other was because they scared most people off. No way that's gonna happen with the Kunos. You could not chase them off with a pack of rabid wild c-c-cats!" 

            "You have a point there," Nabiki admitted, as she began to think it over again. For crying out loud, both copies had put the moves on Ranma, and there were few things more dangerous to truly mess with. 

            Ukyo shrugged and turned back to Ranma, "I don't see the problem, really. If the dates lead nowhere, very little has changed. If they do get serious, then that takes care of both problems, right? Unless…" she bit her lip. "Ran-chan? Do those two HAVE to go back in the mirror? Will something bad happen if they stay out?"

            "No way! They go back at the end of the week! That's final!"

            "Hmmm," Nabiki tilted her head and commented absently, "That definitely makes things complicated. Whatever sort of relationship the Kunos thing they're getting into, they'll automatically converge on Ranma as soon as the copies are gone." She snapped her mouth shut, as she realized she was thinking aloud. 

            The comment hit Ranma like an atom bomb, "I gotta stop them! Now!" He jumped up and ran out of the house. He had to break up the dates at once. The rest followed, expecting things to swiftly balloon into pandemonium. 

            "Ranma! Wait!"

            "I'm with you, Ran-chan!"

            "I'll, uh, be along shortly," Nabiki saw the martial artists flying out of sight and dropped into a walk. Imagine her, running! She shook her head. 

As Ranma raced desperately across Nerima, pursued by his official fiancées, he had no idea that the double date was coming to a furious conclusion. Two figures, trembling with shattered nerves and angry disgust were cutting through the park with every intention of returning to the Tendo Dojo. Trailing them with threats and entreaties were their respective dates. The copies tried to ignore Tatewaki and Kodachi, while smoothing down their disheveled hair and straightening their clothing. Their wild eyes and sweat sheened faces revealed that the glut of aphrodisiacs, slipped to them by the Kunos, were beginning to be metabolized, adding to the emotional turmoil each suffered. They did not know what to do with themselves, but getting away from the psychotic siblings definitely seemed like a good start.

            Unfortunately, Tatewaki and Kodachi would not back off. 

            "Leggo, dammit! I said the date is over! I have to go!"

            "Pig-tailed-girl! I implore you! The evening is still young!"

            "Oh, Ranma-sama! Let us recline together under the shade of that tree!"

            "No, Kodachi! I said it was time to go home!"

            In their initial efforts to slip away, they had made promises to allow their suitors to take them on a later date, if they would just go away for now. That was imperative. Once their bodies had begun to respond to the molestation, they had known it was time to split. Things were going way too fast, spinning out of control, and that upset them to the core. 

            "Stop it, Kuno! There won't be a second date if you don't back off!"

            "Ko-Kodachi! Let go of… get your hands outta there!"

            Copy-chan bashed Kuno down for the hundredth time and turned to look at her counterpart. Poor Copy-kun was fairing poorly against Kodachi, unwilling to actually hit her or hurt her to make her back off. Seeing that the girl had tripped him and was slipping her hand into the waistband of his pants, while Copy-kun slithered back in desperation, she had to come to his aid once more. Grabbing the girl by her side-slung ponytail, she jerked her off of Copy-kun and threw her towards the nearest tree. As Kodachi flipped in the air and readied herself to spring back, Kuno recovered and lunged for Copy-chan. 

            Copy-kun, seeing she had her back to him, focusing on Kodachi, flew across to catch Kuno on the chin with a solid kick. He was happy to square off against the kendoist, since this was a threat he could easily defend himself against, where as his sister's assaults made a mockery of his defenses. If he had known how impulsive and treacherous the nature of the Kuno siblings was, neither he nor Copy-chan would have agreed to their proposals. 

            "It is to laugh," Kuno remarked, rubbing his jaw and composing himself regally as Copy-kun squared off against him once more. "I, the great Tatewaki Kuno, forced to choose between love and honor, must bow and accept such blows. Though it is meet I should teach you the lesson you well deserve, I repeat, I will not fight with you, Saotome."

            "Too bad. If anyone needs a lesson here, it's you, moron!"

            "Pig-tailed-girl! Again you try to come between me and my love!" Kodachi was raving, fanning a set of gymnastic clubs in one hand and twirling a ribbon in the other. "Clearly, it is not possible for Ranma-sama to court me while you remain present. To that end, I deliver you into the care of my brother, using whatever means necessary to discourage your misplaced affection for my beloved!"

            "Dream on, Kodachi! I've seen what you're like now. I can't let him date a psycho like you!" Copy-chan prepared herself for the girl's attack. 

            "My dear sister! It is time we joined forces to separate these two, that we might persevere in our efforts to woo them!"

            "Don't think you're getting through me, Kuno! There's no way I'll let her go out with a freak like you!" Copy-kun shouted, rushing forward. 

            "I am ready, elder brother! For love!" she cried, signaling the beginning of the siblings' combined attack. As one, the Kunos moved to flank their rivals, preparing to lash out. The copies moved with equal precision, stepping in close to penetrate the broad defenses their opponents enjoyed courtesy of their weapons. They were both surprised by the intensity of the Kunos' attacks, finding themselves forced to dodge. As Copy-chan darted away from Kodachi's attack, Copy-kun stumbled into it, retreating from Kuno's "strike of a thousand blows". Copy-kun found himself snared by Kodachi's ribbon, as Copy-chan's clothing vanished into a thousand shreds under the skillful blows of Kuno's bokan. 

            "Gyaaaa! *Gulp* *Gag* *Cough cough* What're you tryin' to do!? Choke me to death!?" Copy-chan screamed, as Kuno took advantage of her gasp of surprise, her hands busy trying to keep her clothes from falling off, to squirt some kind of fluid down her throat. 

            Copy-kun, rolling on the ground after being tripped by the constricting ribbon, tried to see what the kendoist had done to his counterpart, when Kodachi lobbed a small globe at his face. It popped on impact, dousing him in a cloud of sickeningly sweet vapor. "D… dammit, Koda… *Snork, snore*" he was unconscious before he could finish griping.

            Copy-chan whipped around to see what had happened to him, but the world kept spinning even after she stopped. She was still struggling to recover her balance when Kuno grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder. "Have no fear, my goddess! The Secret Sake of Love will surely overpower the curse you suffer! You shall be drunk with love for me!"'

            "Excellent work, brother dear! Now we must hasten to put as much distance between these two as possible, to counter the effects of that accursed attraction!" Kodachi produced a make-shift litter and rolled Copy-kun's unconscious body onto it. Kuno nodded, pausing to place his hand on his sister's shoulder. 

            "Truly, extraordinary measures are mandated lest we fail to preserve our most beloved treasures from the danger of each other. Go now, Kodachi, to victory!" he bowed his head to her, then began to prance the opposite way through the park. In the bushes, just out of sight, Akane and Ukyo climbed off of Ranma. The three of them had arrived in time to see the mismatched couples quarrel and fight, and the fiancées had dog piled on Ranma to keep him from jumping into the middle of things and making them worse. While holding him down, they had gotten an eyeful as the Kuno's swiftly incapacitated Ranma's twins and began carting them off. 

            "I suppose we should have expected this," Akane quipped. 

            "What didja go and do that for!?" Ranma complained as he picked himself up and dusted himself off.

            "Ranchan, do you think it would be a good idea to let the Kunos see you and your copies all at the same time? I mean, think about it," Ukyo tried to point out reasonably. 

            "Later," Akane huffed, "Right now we should split up and go rescue those clowns. Come on, Ukyo." Akane grabbed the chef by the arm and dragged her off after Kodachi. Ranma fumed for a moment, then turned to sprint after Kuno. As soon as the three of them were out of sight, another form pushed through the bushes, from the opposite side of the clearing. 

            "Where in the world am I now!" Ryouga cried out to the sky. Lowering his eyes, he noticed the signs of recent combat. Picking up a few of Kodachi's clubs his face became excited. "This is one of Kodachi's clubs! I am sure of it! Does… does that mean I am back in Nerima!?" He began laughing, tears streaming down his cheeks. "Oh, Akari! Again my heart leads the way to you!" he could not believe his luck. Just that morning, he had resolved to call Akari and arrange for a date to make up for the one he had run out on after being kissed by Ranma's copy. Believing it had been Ranma, he had been too ashamed to face Akari. But, she seemed eager to meet with him again, suggesting the park after school. Now all he had to do was figure out where in the park their meeting place was!

            By pure chance, or maybe the true curse of his warped sense of direction was to always pick the worst possible destination and reach it in great haste, he rushed off in the same direction as Ranma and Kuno. 

            Akane and Ukyo hightailed it after Kodachi, impressed that she could move so quickly while dragging so much dead weight. Kodachi heard the rush of feet behind her and whipped around, forgetting for the moment the boy on the improvised litter. The gymnast unintentionally dumped him in a shallow trench beside the path she had been following, dodging Ukyo and Akane's initial assault. "Oh-hohohohohohoho! Do you think to catch me by surprise!" she cried, reaching into nowhere to produce part of her arsenal.

            "Does it look like we're going for surprise here!?" Ukyo cried, flinging a handful of mini-spatulas to shred ribbon and knock clubs from the gymnast's hands. In her other hand, she readied her primary weapon, the giant spatula.

            "Don't waste your breath, Ukyo," Akane growled. "There's no point talking to her." Cracking her knuckles, Akane grinned in anticipation of finally getting the chance to pay Kodachi back for the insults and ambushes of their first conflict. In seconds, the official fiancées had closed in on the self-appointed rival and begun their deadly dance. On the surface it seemed a typical fight of the rival fiancée's over Ranma, except the clone did not inspire any conflict between Akane and Ukyo. This allowed them to work effectively together against Kodachi and her treacherous attacks. 

            Within moments, the allies had Kodachi on the ropes. 

            In the opposite direction, Ranma had unexpectedly caught up to and confronted Kuno. He had expected the older boy would be able to make a swift getaway, hardly burdened by Copy-chan's light form. He was not prepared to stumble across the couple near the edge of the park. Seeing the kendoist bent over the girl's unconscious form, his hands around her neck, Ranma's heart lurched in a panic. He certainly could not know that Kuno had paused to choke another combination of aphrodisiacs and the rest of a love potion down the girl's throat. Though he could not imagine why the older boy might try to kill his "goddess" Ranma really could not put such a thing past him. Kuno, for his part, might not have actually intended to choke the girl to death, but it had not occurred to him to wonder how she could swallow while unconscious.

            "Kuno!" Ranma roared, "If you've hurt her, I'll make you wish you were never born!" Ranma kicked Kuno off, and dropped to check on the girl. Before he could so much as verify that she was breathing, Kuno had rebounded and rushed forward to attack.

            "Saotome! I do not know how you escaped my sister's clutches, but I assure you, you shall not this time escape my wrath!" he lunged with his sword, prepared to thrust it right through the martial artist's chest. His promise not to fight with his rival could not survive the perceived failure of his sister. If she could not keep Ranma out of his way, than it was up to Kuno to remove, once and for all, the threat to his dreams of bliss.

            Ranma was forced to retreat rapidly in the face of Kuno's onslaught. He was well aware that Kuno could wield that wooden sword with lethal effectiveness. He also knew that deep in the kendoist's psyche was the memory of his watermelon training. That unbeatable technique was showing itself as Kuno lost himself to rage and a willingness to kill. Sparing one last look at the girl laying helpless in the dirt, Ranma scowled and took flight. He had to lose Kuno quickly if he was going to be able to help her.

            The two quickly vanished into combat. 

            Copy-chan lay there, her throat trying to work around the objects lodged in her throat and draw breath, her mind spinning in an alcohol induced nightmare, while birds flitted from tree emitting cheerful twerps and whistles. A few, painfully long moments passed before Ryouga stumbled through the bushes. If this was fortune smiling on her, it was a warped and wicked smile, because the lost boy was blindly absorbed in fantasies of being reunited with Akari. At least, until he tripped over the girl convulsing in the dirt. Picking himself up, his temper boiling to the surface, he turned to see what offending and soon to be mauled obstruction had dared to spill him onto his face. As his eyes came into focus, and the only appropriate words he could manage to phrase his ire formed in his head, Copy-chan ran out of time. As Ryouga tripped over her, she had reflexively gasped, sucking the obstructions deeper into her throat, sealing off her airway. Her body arched one last time, as the strain on her system from lack of oxygen, too much alcohol, drugs and potions combined to stop her heart. 

            "Damn you Ranma! Prepare to die!" Ryouga's eternal challenge finally erupted. Ryouga lurched to his feet, umbrella out, ready to follow his challenge with violence. A couple of seconds ticked by. Ryouga's face flushed a dark red. "Hey! Get up, you lazy bastard! It's time for you to pay for all the insults and all the crimes you have committed against me!" The tension holding the girl's body in its final arch of protest suddenly melted away, leaving her limp. "What kind of an idiot do you take me for!?" Ryouga shouted. "Stop playing dead and face me!"

            Copy-chan did not move. 

            Ryouga stared in annoyance. Finally, he moved forward and poked the girl with his umbrella. Nothing. He crouched by her ear and let out a head splitting scream. Still nothing. "Geez, Ranma! What does it take to wake you up!?" He reached out to pinch the back of the girl's hand. Still no reaction. And that was not all, his mind insisted. She was too still. _She isn't breathing,_ a voice murmured in his head. With fingers that suddenly would not stop trembling, he pressed on her wrist, seeking a pulse. He put his ear to her chest, after failing to find a pulse. Finally, a full minute after she stopped moving, he sat back on his heels and gasped, "I don't believe it! Ranma's dead!" Ryouga swallowed hard. He had not done anything. He was sure of it. He had just tripped over her. "Ranma's dead… and… it's not my fault!"

            Ryouga bounced up and began to dance around the clearing. At long last! His most hated rival was out of the way! Nothing stood between him and Akane! 

            Just then Kuno and Ranma rushed through the clearing. Ryouga blinked, as the combatants raced away, splashing through a fountain. Though it was some distance away, Ryouga could not miss the shift from black to red hair, as Ranma changed. His eyes dropped to the girl before him. His mind flashed back to a week earlier, his first kiss, then skipped to that morning. 

_            "Or, did you actually like that kiss?"_

            "Copy-chan," he breathed. 


	10. Close Calls

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Ten: Close Calls

The velvet green landscape of the park had boiled away to be replaced by a haunting darkness, as Copy-chan succumbed to the overpowering effects of the Sake of Love. Her body, highly aroused by a suicide cocktail of aphrodisiacs slipped to her by Kuno, was going into shock from the addition of that extremely alcoholic potion. She was already well disconnected from reality when Kuno noticed that she had passed out and stopped to administer another helping of sexual stimulants and the rest of the potion, in the hopes of getting her fired up again. The sensation of his hands closing around her neck, trying to massage her throat into swallowing, opened a door into an untapped portion of her inherited psyche. The nightmare which unfolded surrounded her with steep, exotic mountains and a misty, spring riddled valley. The same image had flitted through her mind when Ranma explained his trip to Jusenkyo and how he had received his curse. Not that she could really think about it, because in this nightmare a large and powerful man was doing his very best to strangle her while tearing her clothes away.

            She found herself struggling against defilement and unconsciousness.

            She sensed that she was not alone in her predicament. Nearby, other women were being assaulted by the significantly larger group of men they had stumbled across in their attempt to flee from one ambush, only to stumble right into another. A riot of voices, male and female, shouting and screaming in Mandarin, offered her the only hint of what was going on, as her vision went black. Mere moments away from passing out and becoming defenseless against rape, the man atop of her was roughly jerked away. 

            "Idiot! The prince wants Fa Shen intact!"

            "I just wanted some fun before we kill her," the man complained, bitterly, nursing a bruised jaw. 

            "We need a virgin for the sacrifice, moron!"

            Copy-chan rolled onto her side, gasping and blinking as she tried to regain her senses. The sound of Mandarin seemed long familiar, but she was not used to any of it making sense. As she wondered how she could understand the voices, she found herself wishing she had been left ignorant of her fate. Before she could pull herself together, the new man kicked her in the gut. 

            "Get up, Fa Shen! It's time for you to pay for your tribe's crime!"

            A group of men stormed over as she curled on her side in pain. One of them leaned close to the man who kicked her and exchanged a few whispers, as the rest of the group grabbed her and dragged her to her feet. She managed to focus her eyes and look up. The man who kicked her had an oddly feline cast to his features. His deference in speech and manner suggested that the individual conferring with him was the aforementioned prince. She focused on the prince, taking in his elegant and exotic features. He looked positively draconian. Past him, she could make out a young man scowling at her. His resemblance to her was astonishing, but only because it was less—or if you considered the hair, more—perfect than that of Copy-kun, or Ranma in his true form. The prince beckoned to the men holding her to drag her along as he approached the man she was studying.

            "Lo Shen, would you care to say anything to your little sister before we proceed?" the prince addressed the red haired man as he approached. 

            "What interest have I in the my traitorous mother's bastard!" he declared hotly, turning his shoulder to her. The prince laughed and gestured again at the men. Copy-chan was surprised as those men began wrapping ropes, with heavy stone weights at their ends, around her body. She finally found her voice. 

            "What do you think you're doing?"

            "Replacing that which was destroyed, child!" the prince was suddenly in her face. His hands reached up to caress her face. "May your beauty and fire pass on to those who will be blessed by your grave."

            She blinked in surprised confusion. "What?"

            The men holding her dragged her around to face what her "brother" had been studying before her arrival. It was a freshly dug spring. She had a moment to wonder what was going on. Then it hit her. They were going to drown her, make a new cursed spring. "Wait! Don't do this!"

            "It is already done," the prince laughed as the men behind Copy-chan shoved her hard. She braced her feet, forcing the men to try harder. "You should have accepted my proposal. Now, I will have to make do with just your likeness. Goodbye, Fa Shen." Annoyed by her resistance, one of the men kicked at the back of her knees to break her footing. Copy-chan gasped for breath as she hurtled toward the cold waters of death. It was hard not to waste breath screaming in shock and outrage. As she sank to the depths, she struggled against her bonds, desperate to escape this abominable fate. Unfortunately, her exertion only depleted oxygen faster. The water was absorbed into the ropes making them stronger, making her even own unusual strength useless. Just as she realized that she was going to die, another part of her mind suddenly understood that she had been dead for a long time. 

            As the nightmare came to it's conclusion, Ryouga, startled and staring on in horror as the convulsions stopped and she became still, crouched down and tried to find her pulse. While he fanned himself in celebration at witnessing "Ranma's" death, Ranma and Kuno blundered through, fighting. 

            While Ryouga slowly realized who lay dying before him, all other thoughts left his mind. While he struggled to untangle the girl before him from the person he otherwise might love to watch die—in theory if not in fact—he completely forgot what he was doing there in the park, and whom he was intended to be with. Unfortunately, Akari Unryuu had no other thoughts on her mind. Past encounters with the lost boy had taught her that a great deal of patience and effort were required in order to actually meet him. That said, she had begun to learn how to detect clues to her ideal man's presence. Just follow the sounds of demolition and conflict, and there was a good chance Ryouga would be at the source. For that reason, she had been riding Katsunishiki, her champion sumo pig, around the outskirts of the park. 

            At that moment, Akari and Katsunishiki were racing down the sidewalk at that end of the park. Katsunishiki paused and turned as he heard the sounds of Ranma and Kuno's battle and squealed to his master in excitement. Akari perked her ears toward the park, and slid down from the giant sumo pig's back, wondering if Ryouga had met one of his friends. With a strange grin, she reminded herself that the group of martial artists, particularly Ranma, was incomprehensibly drawn to conflict, and Ryouga's behavior became the most incomprehensible when any of that group became involved. Sighing, Akari cut into the park to see what the fighting was all about. 

            Ryouga was kneeling beside Ranma's twin, coming out of his stupor. "Copy-chan," he breathed. At once, his gallant streak seized him. He could not let this girl die just because of his grudge with Ranma. He started doing CPR, and the force of his chest compressions popped the obstructions out her mouth. Ryouga steeled his nerve to clamp his mouth over hers and give her breath between compressions. 

            For roughly two minutes, the circulation of blood had been arrested in Copy-chan's body. More than enough time to die, but not quite enough for brain damage to begin. The first rush of blood into her cranium flushed out poisonous levels of carbon-dioxide, and brought a hint of oxygen to spark synapses. The euphoric tingle of suffocation, so similar to drowning, rose in a painful crescendo as her body clamored for the return of her soul. The first breath of air from Ryouga's lungs entered like a warm wind, washing away the cold chill of a long forgotten death. The nightmare dissolved around her, as Copy-chan was drawn back. The doors opened by her trauma slipping closed once more. The feel of warm lips on hers was more urgent than remembering to lock those doors behind her, as she awoke to her body's arousal. As full consciousness returned to the her, the love potion kicked in and she wrapped her arms around Ryouga, turning the kiss of life into a kiss of passion. 

            Naturally, that was when Akane dragged the unconscious, paralyzed Copy-kun into the clearing in search of Ranma. Equally well timed, Akari and her giant pig entered the clearing from the other direction and froze. 

            The lost boy was helpless before the passion of Copy-chan's kiss. It did not help that he had just cleared the hurdle of distinguishing her as a separate entity from Ranma, and a real girl to boot. He had also just corrected the memory of his first kiss, attributing it to her instead of Ranma. He could hardly be blamed then, after having failed to express his appreciation of that first kiss, for trying to make up for it whole-heartedly now. His arms slipped around her, and he pulled her up, practically into his lap, as he found it in him to return the kiss with interest. After a long, breathless moment, the girl had to part for air or risk passing out again. The lost boy leaned back, a wide grin on his face, blinking in wonder. At the third or fourth blink, he noticed others were present. Looking left and right, he saw the last two people he could bear to confront at a moment like this. Ryouga froze and shattered in the girl's iron grip.

            Akane and Akari turned and departed, shock evident on their faces. 

            Ryouga plummeted suddenly from the height of bliss to the depths of despair. Reeling back, he let out a shout of utter betrayal, unwittingly unleashing his ultimate Shishihokodan. Copy-chan, clinging to the lost boy for dear life, felt the horrible weight of grief spilling out of the boy, hurtling straight up into the air above them before crashing down on everything at that end of the park, crushing the barely revived girl back into unconsciousness. Ryouga was oblivious to the sphere of destruction, until he saw the girl he had just revived sprawled on the ground, the last of her tattered clothes blasted away by his chi attack. He didn't trust himself to touch her, but risked two fingers on her neck to make sure he had not undone his effort to save her. Finding a pulse, he sighed and backed away. After taking in the extent of the damage from his outburst, the lost boy dug around until he had located his traveling gear, and then proceeded to get lost with as much haste as possible. 

Akane made her way out of the park, pausing to shift Copy-kun to a fireman's carry as she reached the sidewalk, and tried to come to terms with what she had just seen. She remembered all too well the events of the koi fishing rod. Despite Ryouga's later explanations, that he had not believed the rod really worked and that he had not hooked Ranma intentionally, she still remembered the many times she had stumbled across Ryouga and Ranma in very compromising positions. She had even heard Ryouga confess his true feelings to Ranma after freeing his rival from the effects of the koi rod. Copy-chan had reminded Akane, painfully, of what Ranma had been like under the compulsion to love Ryouga. More than once, Akane had wondered if Ryouga's antipathy towards Ranma stemmed from the fact that he had fallen in love with his rival's girl side. Ryouga had to know it would never work. Ranma was just not like that. She hoped. Then there was Copy-chan. Naturally, an all girl version of Ranma would show up when Ryouga was trying to build a relationship with his new girlfriend Akari. 

            From the detonation of a full shishihokodan, it was obvious that Ryouga was utterly devastated. That, more than anything, suggested that things were not quite how they appeared. Not that it really explained what had happened. 

            Poor Akari! She had given her heart entirely to Ryouga, and more than once her love for the lost boy had been frustrated by the strange relationship between Ryouga and Ranma. There could not be anything real there, Akane tried to tell herself, but Ryouga managed to betray himself at the worst possible times. Unfortunately, Ranma always helped create those situations, by interfering with Ryouga. She tried not to wonder why her fiancé might go to such extremes to mess with Ryouga, without some really perverted reason. 

            Seeing Akari leaning against her giant pig, further down the side walk, she decided to go over and try to comfort her. Without warning, Kuno's body burst through the trees, flying towards the horizon overhead. Akane tracked the kendoist's flight, and decided that had to have been Ranma's work. That meant that it had been Copy-chan in Ryouga's passionate embrace. Poor Akari. This was going to take a lot of explaining. Of course, this was not the first time something like this had happened. When she had witnessed Ryouga crushing Ranma-chan in his arms, shouting "I love you" almost immediately after Ryouga stopped taking offense at Akari's love of pigs, she had run away believing Ryouga was in love with another woman. The fact that Ryouga had simply responded to a subliminal command Ranma had implanted in the lost boy to break the ice on their date, had not made it any better. She did not think that had ever been explained, so Akari probably still believed there was another girl. Dreading the prospect of trying to explain, Akane concentrated on just distracting Akari for the moment. 

            "Akari-chan," she waved to the other girl. "Could I borrow your pig to help carry this jerk home? If you would come along and stay for tea, I might be able to explain what just happened back there," she offered. She was not sure if Akari understood about Ranma's curse. She certainly did not know about Copy-chan. Explaining Ryouga's action would require Akane to reveal the truth about both of them, though she would just be guessing at what it all really meant. 

            "Oh, Akane Tendo! Hi. I, uh… Sure. Katsunishiki would be glad to help. I… I think it would be a good idea to sit down and do some thinking too. That is, if Ryouga isn't there. I don't know if I could deal with that right now."

            "Things aren't what they seem," she assured with a friendly smile. The explosion of heavy chi was enough to promise that. "If I know Ryouga, he's probably headed for Okinawa by now." Akari just nodded numbly. Akane could tell the girl was not ready to talk, and probably did not even want to think about what she had just seen. 

            While the two girls lifted Copy-chan's unconscious form to Katsunishiki's back, and tied him down, Ranma was rushing back to find out what had happened to Copy-chan. Ranma-chan entered the clearing to find her twin stark naked and unconscious in the middle of one of Ryouga's craters. 

            "Oh great. Ryouga probably thought she was me and attacked her," he crouched down to check her vital signs. She was hot and flushed, but her pulse and breathing were both strong. "At least you're alright. For a sec there, I was afraid Kuno was tryin' to kill you," Ranma muttered to the girl. Reminding herself to pay the lost boy back for leaving her alone in this condition, Ranma-chan picked her double up and cradled her close to her body. She paused a moment, wondering if she should check on Akane and Ukyo, but she decided it was safer to not risk confronting Akane with the naked girl in her arms. Rushing out of the park, and taking to the rooftops, she made her best speed back to the Tendo Dojo. 

            Upon arriving at the dojo, the girl was still out cold, so Ranma-chan took her into the furo. They were both covered in grime from their fights, and Ranma could not think of any reason not to bathe both of them at the same time. Though Copy-chan was all girl, her body was no mystery to Ranma. She did not bother with hot water, or a soak in the furo, since Copy-chan was in no condition to be immersed in a bath. She was dressed, and had slipped her copy into a spare set of pajamas, by the time Akane and Akari arrived. She was carrying the girl upstairs when they came in, bearing an equally unconscious Copy-kun. Nabiki, who had met the girls on her way out to the park and come back with them, led Akari into the tea room while Akane followed Ranma-chan upstairs.

            Akari had seen all three Ranmas during the shuffle, but a surprised look was the limit of her immediate reaction. Ukyo showed up, looking a little worse for wear as Akane and Ranma-chan returned from upstairs. The clones were safely laid out in separate rooms to recover from the Kunos' drugs, so the gang gathered around the table to relax. 

            Akari was glaring at Ranma-chan, wringing her hands under the table. Akane, sitting next to her, leaned in and whispered. "It wasn't hi… uh, her. It was the other one, the girl upstairs."

            "Why are there two of you?" Akari demanded. "Does Ryouga love her?"

            "Um. The first part is kinda complicated," Ranma-chan began. "What, uh… what happened between Copy-chan and Ryouga?"

            "You didn't see it?" Akane rolled her eyes, not wanting to mention what happened in front of Akari. 

            "I was too busy fighting Kuno. When I got around to looking for her, Ryouga had blasted her with his shishihokodan."

            Akari remembered that the other red-head had been unconscious when they arrived. "Ryouga did that? I don't understand. They were kissing when I got there. Why would he knock her out?"

            "Probably because she kissed him. She's, um… sort of a nymphomaniac. She keeps jumping people," Ranma grumbled, blushing. 

            Akari looked down into her lap, thinking. "She's very pretty, and I've seen Ryouga get carried away with her before. Or was that you?" she looked into Ranma-chan's eyes.

            "Um, he's gotten weird with me a few times. But I ain't interested! I am not like that. Stupid koi rod!" Ranma's mind wandered off. She had eventually remembered the whole ordeal, and it still creeped her out that Ryouga would try and mess with her like that. Kuno was one thing, but Ryouga knew she was really a guy. Of course he had laughed with envy when he had first learned of her curse. Thanks to Ryouga, Ranma had been forced to understand that, because the plumbing existed, part-time or no, some guys would see her as a girl in spite of the truth. "My, uh… twin hasn't been around long enough for any kind of relationship with Ryouga, though she seems to end up kissing him a lot. I am sure what ever you saw was her fault."

            "Do you think so?" Akari looked hopeful, hands clasped below her chin.

            "Even if Ryouga has a crush on her, she's leaving for good at the end of the week. He'll never see her again, and I ain't gonna let anything like that go on between me and him!" Ranma-chan declared hotly. 

            Akari nodded and then looked at Akane, "I almost forgot to ask, is Ranma-kun okay?" She had, after all, helped bring Akane's fiancée home from the park and seen her carry him upstairs. Naturally she was surprised when Ranma-chan answered automatically. 

            "Sheesh! I'm fine. Kuno'll never be a match for me!"

            "Idiot," Nabiki breathed, while sipping her tea.

            "Ano, I was talking about Akane's fiancé," Akari tried to clarify.

            "Heh, that was our fathers' idea. Hell, thanks to my Pops, I am probably engaged to half the people in Tokyo!" Ranma fumed as Akane put her head in her hands. Akari leaned close to Akane and spoke in a stage whisper.

            "Is she always like this?"

            Ranma stared at the girls in confusion. All of a sudden she realized that, while Akari knew about Ryouga's curse, she was oblivious to Ranma's. Stiffening in alarm, she tried to cover it up, rubbing the back of her head and laughing nervously, "Uh, hahaha! I was just kidding you know. I'm not Ranma, of course! I'm Ranko! I wouldn't want to be engaged to a violent tomboy like Akane! Oh no! Heheheheh… Ite!" She was cut off as Akane dropped the hammer on her.

            "And I wouldn't want to be engaged to a perverted jerk like you!"

            Akari reeled back in surprise. 

            "Some people never learn," Nabiki sighed. 

            The sound of movement upstairs caught their attention before anything more could be said between Akane and Ranma. 

            "Uh oh. It sounds like they've woken up."

            "We better go check on them," Ranma-chan bounced to her feet. 

            When Akane and Ranma arrived upstairs, with the others close behind them, they found the door to Akane's room open, and the shoji leading to the guestroom closed. Sweeping it open, they saw the copies struggling to undress each other without breaking from a heated kiss. Nabiki's camera was out, clicking and whirring before the others could gasp. Akane was as quick as ever to produce the pervert-pulverizer, but the two just rolled around in their passionate embrace, unwittingly dodging as she struck. 

            "Wow, I guess she has this effect on a lot of guys," Akari murmured in astonishment. Despite her normal, feminine demeanor, she stood there wide eyed, taking mental notes on how to apply these techniques in her own pursuit of Ryouga, instead of showing the expected outrage personified by Akane. Ukyo stood there shaking her head and clucking her tongue. It took a cold bucket of water to get the couple's attention, by which point their clothes were safe from such dousing, scattered all over the room. While Akane and Ranma rushed them back into their clothes, Nabiki put away her camera and led Akari and Ukyo downstairs. Akane and the Ranmas soon joined them. 

            "We can't even leave you alone unconscious! What is it with you two!? Wasn't a date with each other and the Kunos enough to satisfy you?" Ranma-chan nagged the sheepish pair. 

            "I can't help it. Whatever Kuno was feeding me gave me all these weird urges!" Copy-chan protested, as her opposite nodded in agreement. 

            "Those two are psycho! The least someone could have done was warn us!" Copy-kun grumbled, as he flopped down at the table. He joined Copy-chan in glaring at Ranma, having long since reached the conclusion that the Kunos had been drawn to them because of the original. "What have you done with those two to get them so obsessed with you!?"

            "I didn't do nothin'! They're both just crazy!" Ranma retorted.

            "How could you set us up with them!?"

            "It wasn't me! It was Nabiki's idea. She thought she could get them off my back, and split you two up by arranging this. I had nothing to do with it!" The duplicates looked at Nabiki, who was looking innocent and shocked at the accusation, and returned their disbelieving glares to Ranma-chan. The two proceeded to pound on Ranma as payback for setting the pair of psychos on them. When Ranma-chan was reduced to incoherent mumblings of pain, they sat back and huffed.

            "I don't care if you threaten to kill us again. There's no way I'm going to have anything to do with that Kodachi again!"

            "I'd rather die than so much as speak to Kuno again. And that goes for following you to school anymore. No way! Not as long as he's gonna be there!" Copy-chan crossed her arms. She was pretty hazy about what happened at the end of the date, but whatever it was frightened her to the bone. 

            Ranma perked up. "Do you meant it?" He sagged in relief when they nodded vigorously. "Well. I can't let you out of going to school, or I have to cut too. Pops will kill me if I do that. Kodachi might still be a problem, but you have my permission to clobber Kuno on sight, that okay with you?"

            "Sure. I'll make him hate me if it's the last thing I do!" Copy-chan swore.

            "You'd be doing everyone a favor!" Ranma assured, smiling brightly. "Except for Nabiki. Kuno's her best customer." The clones looked at him in confusion. Ranma pulled a stack of pictures he had "liberated" from one of his classmates after lunch. Wordlessly, he handed them to the couple. They looked at them in shock, seeing images from the night before. There were dozens of shots of Ranma-chan and Copy-chan in various states of wearing lingerie, a few snaps of both copies in the furo together, and scenes of their combat with Ranma from later that evening. 

            "What's this all about?"

            "Hey, a girl's got to make a living somehow," Nabiki smiled. Before Ranma could waste any more effort trying to convince them of her nefarious doings, she admitted that she had sold some information to the Kuno siblings which might have precipitated their decision to propose dating the couple. "I certainly didn't arrange the dates. I just let them know that the two of you might return their affection if they could earn your trust. You two can't have a real relationship together, right?"

            "I'm not sure what we have together, but it's a hell of a lot better than any kind of involvement with them," Copy-chan brooded. Still, part of Nabiki's point got through. For whatever reason, she found her thoughts revolving around Ryouga. She could remember a brief moment in his arms, sharing a most glorious kiss. "I might be interested in finding someone else, I just don't know if he's really interested."

            Akari turned and glared at Copy-chan.

            Akane cut in at once, "I don't think you should be thinking about starting any kind of relationships. Ranma has enough trouble without you two going and starting things with people while you are here. It's not fair to leave Ranma to deal with all of that!"

            "What are you talking about!?"

            "You don't seriously think you're going to be around long enough for anything serious to happen, do you? You both go back at the end of the week." Ranma glared at the duplicates until they both looked away. It would have been hard to say which of the three was the most upset and disturbed at the moment. The situation seemed cruel and unfair to all of them, and threatened to make them think about things they did not want to. Things that had gone unsaid about who and what they were, or should be, to each other. 

Later that evening, as Ranma was getting ready for bed, the copies sought him out. The three of them had dropped out of the conversation, wandering outside to think while Akane, Ukyo and Nabiki talked to Akari about her relationship with Ryouga. Something about the mood affecting the trio had kept even Ukyo from pressing them with her attention. She had finally left, with Akari, resolving to have a serious talk with each of them when she could get them alone. They had remained subdued through dinner. Food might have roused them from their depression, but Genma had limited his food fighting to Copy-kun, ignoring the other two. Ranma had plummeted back into a deep funk at this silent rejection, dragging the other two down after him. The copies did not even realize that they withered under the implied disapproval of their existence. Ranma was almost aware of feeling terrible for holding their origins in him against them. He just could not completely separate them from himself. That made it harder for him to threaten them with banishment. His conscience kept asking him how he would feel if the people around him wished he did not even exist. 

            As they crept into his room, he sighed. Did he hate them? He looked up. They drove him crazy. They were impossible to control, but he could not hate them without hating himself. "Why does this stuff always happen to me?" he asked under his breath. Shaking his head, he raised his voice, "What do you want now?"

            "Sex…" Copy-kun began, forgetting how he was going to bring up the subject they had agreed to question Ranma about. Ranma was lunging for his throat before he could even form the question on his mind.

            "Stop it!" Copy-chan darted between the boys, ending up face to face with Ranma, and between his arms. Ranma recoiled, scuttling back to the wall. She half turned and slapped her compatriot on the head, "That wasn't what you were supposed to say!"

            "Ow! It wasn't supposed to come out like that," he rubbed his head and looked at Ranma. "I meant, well, sex is what you're all afraid of, right? That's what you don't want me and her trying to do."

            Ranma considered this for a moment and relaxed. He remembered feeling, for a moment, the desire to open up to Ukyo at school. He was also feeling bad about getting so angry with the copies when he knew they could not help themselves. Swallowing, he decided to do something he rarely considered. Talk. With a deep breath, he confided, "I don't even care to talk about sex. I don't wanna think about it. But how can I avoid it with the two of you running around tryin' one stupid thing after another?"

            The couple sighed. Copy-chan looked at him, "It took us a while to figure out that this was about sex, not love. I still don't understand why they're connected, or, why 'making love' or 'having sex' is such a bad thing."

            "It… it's not, really. It's a good thing, if you love someone. If you're a normal guy or a normal girl. But if you're like me…" Ranma trailed off. He shook his head. "That's the problem with Kuno and Kodachi. They don't see me as a person. I am an object to them, a thing to play with, to make their sick fantasies come true. They're dangerous, because they don't know the meaning of the word 'love' and almost as little about sex. They want to possess, control, conquer, cuz that's all they understand."

            "You don't need to tell us that it's dangerous to mess with those two. But, you have to tell us why you… what you…" Copy-chan uttered a strangled scream of frustration. She bowed her head, daring her own confession. "We're so lonely. We're only here because of you, but because of you we're not even real people to anyone. I… I have all these feelings, these desires I don't understand, and they're all I have to go on. But if I follow where they lead, you… everyone gets upset. I can't take it."

            Copy-kun put a hand on her shoulder, pulling her back against his chest. Ranma was staring at them, shock and disbelief mixing with some hint of sympathy. "I don't remember anything before stepping out of the mirror," he volunteered. "For me, the world begins with seeing her. Seeing her joy at my appearance. For one moment, I had a reason to exist, and the promise of fulfillment. Since then, things have gone to hell."

            "You've got that right," Ranma sighed. 

            "I never meant to… do… what I did to you, Ranma. You say you're a guy. That being a girl is your curse. I just can't help seeing her when I look at you in that form. To me, you are a copy of her, not the other way around. She's the real thing, and I… I want her. Because I am lonely and she's the one person I can trust." He looked away before continuing, "I can't tell you how horrible it was to be with her, to hold her and kiss her, and then find out it was you."

            "How do you think I felt, huh!?"

            "I can't imagine. The idea of actually being a girl is too… weird… for me to really understand. I would hate to be in your place. At the same time, it's… I dunno. It's kinda neat!"

            "You've gotta be kidding me! You freaked out when you thought you would have the curse too!"

            "Yeah. I did. It's okay for a girl to be a girl, but… how can a guy be a girl without giving up being a guy? Wouldn't I just be a girl who only thought she was a guy? A girl who couldn't deal with what she was?"

            Ranma flinched, but understood the thought too well. In the darker hours of his life, he found himself asking questions like that. "So what is that supposed to mean!? You think I'm a girl pretending to be a guy!?"

            "Only when you're a girl, Ranma. I am sorry, I know you don't wanna hear somethin' like that, but… that's just how my mind deals with it. I could not have touched you like that if I saw you as a guy," he shrugged. 

            "Thanks, that makes me feel so much better," Ranma growled.

            "Ranma," Copy-chan slipped away from her counterpart and approached the original. "I'm not a guy, I've never even considered I could be a guy, even if I come from you. Yin and Yang, it's a part of all of us, so I don't understand why you can't deal with being a girl. I don't understand, but I think that's the reason you can't stand the idea of me having sex with him."

            "What are you talking about?"

            "You said it the other night, you don't think we're real people. We're parts of you and even if we're both being controlled by the ghost of some dead woman, it's still you that's involved. Right?"

            Ranma stared at them, pondering. "Maybe."

            "And so what's really bothering you is that it would be like you having sex with yourself if we did it."

            Ranma nodded hesitantly.

            "So, we want to know what's wrong with that?"

            "Do you have to have it explained to you!" Ranma was incredulous.

            "Yes. Exactly."

            Ranma opened his mouth to give them an earful of reasons, but suddenly he could not really think of any. The truth was, the situation supposedly could never actually come up. Only in his case, it was a constant shadow over him. He tried to avoid facing the fact that he was as much female as he was male. Thanks to Kuno's warped imagination, he had been forced to picture one with the other and in that moment, one side confronting the other, had not known which side he was supposed to be on. Just trying to imagine it had left him feeling torn in two. He had experienced the same agony, ten times over, when he saw the two of them making out before lunch. Taking a shaking breath, he tried to put his fear into words, "I am afraid that it would tear me apart."

            They stared at him in shock.

            "There's more. I can't explain it, but every time he put the moves on me, it was like he sucked the guy right out of me," he muttered, staring into the corner of the room. "Because of you," he flicked a glare at Copy-kun, "I really did become a girl…" Ranma curled up, hugging his knees to his chest.

            "When…  when that happened, when you felt like that, did you hate it?" Copy-chan asked, hoping to make her point. 

            "No. I loved it. That's the problem," Ranma sighed.

            "I don't understand."

            "You don't know about the promise to my mother," Ranma lowered his head. While Ranma was very uneasy about admitting to embracing his femininity, it was not a unique occurrence. Who he was really did not change that much according to gender. He had learned that from the koi fishing rod experience. Pretending to be Ranko had led to an occasional lapse as well. His mother had helped encourage the girl in him, and if she ever learned the truth, would kill him for it. Pulling himself together, he sat down and explained his father's promise to his mother.

AN: While at least one person has claimed that the "Two Ranmas" story arc takes place after Nodoka learned the truth, this is not correct. In the original manga, the truth finally comes out in Volume 36 (Parts 3-8). Also, one notable complaint against the premise of the copies being "just like Ranma" has been made. This is not from lack of imagination, but because the connection of the copies to Ranma is important to the story that evolves from here. Some of you will note the brief glimpse of the creation of the Nyannichaun, and yes, this has been explored in dozens of stories before this. Rather than worry about being totally original, I am more interested in using the ideas I have to tell the story I have in mind. It's not about the pieces, but how they all fit together, really…


	11. Stirring the Pot

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Eleven: Stirring the Pot

The inhabitants of the Tendo Dojo had become nervous over the course of the evening. Certain individuals, particularly a pair of patriarchs, had been oblivious to the descending moods of Ranma and his copies during dinner. Kasumi, who might not pay much heed to any number of odd occurrences, was the most concerned by Ranma's withdrawal and its effect on Copy-chan and Copy-kun. Nabiki, sensing it as well, was also concerned. They would not be likely to do anything she could profit off of if they just moped around like lumps. No one bought sad pictures of Ranma, even if there were plenty people who would like to ensure his misery. Akane was getting angry at the three of them for feeling so sorry for themselves—and for doing it so well she was actually, almost, feeling sorry for them herself. Perhaps that explained the activities they preoccupied themselves with once the trio had disappeared upstairs. Kasumi, true to her nature, decided to go scrub the upstairs hall, conveniently putting herself between the Ranmas and the rest of the household. Nabiki wandered over to the phone and placed a quiet call to the infamous Cat Café requesting a late night delivery from Shampoo. If the purple-haired vixen could not shake things up, then nothing could. Akane sat and stared at Genma. The man was looking thoughtful, and that was not an encouraging sight. 

            Ironically, there were some parallels between Genma's thoughts and the conversation upstairs. The topic in both cases was: Nodoka, and the ever-present threat of seppuku that hung over their heads. While Ranma was explaining the history of that fateful contract, Genma was pondering a positively "inspired" solution. 

            In the guestroom, the copies stared at Ranma with open-mouthed disbelief. "So, let me get this straight," Copy-kun interrupted. "Your dad took you away from your mother when you were, what, five? Six? He had you on the road for ten years or so, and he never so much as mentioned your mother's existence until she showed up a few months ago. You didn't even know about this agreement until she told the Tendos?"

            "Yeah," Ranma sighed and filled in a little more detail, "The whole time my old man was sendin' home letters and such lettin' her know how my training was going. Of course he musta been making stuff up, since the truth woulda probably given her a nervous breakdown or somethin'. When we both got cursed the idiot stopped writing, and she began tryin' to track us down." He snorted in disgust, "He practically guaranteed she'd find us, and thanks to this stupid curse he got me, she's liable to kill us on sight!"

            "That's unbelievable! She's that serious about all this 'Man-Among-Men' non-sense!?" Copy-chan leaned away and shuddered as Ranma nodded.

            "I've already had some close calls. She carries our family's honor blade everywhere she goes, just in case she runs into me and she decides I'm not man enough to suit her."

            "That's insane. Surely, if you just explained the curse, she would understand!"

            "I won't risk it. I mean, she knows my Pop. He'd try to fast-talk his way out of getting caught by gravity. She ain't gonna let us make excuses for our failure."

            "But you said she's always coming over here and teaching you to cook and taking you shopping for girl stuff."

            "She doesn't know it's me. Pops and I use our curses to hide from her. I pretend to be Akane's cousin, Ranko, and Pops pretends to be my pet panda," Ranma explained. He went on to explain how, the first time his mother saw him, he was in girl form, and she had lectured her about being such a tomboy. "All this stuff she's doin' to make a proper 'lady' of me, it's become the hardest part of dealin' with my curse. I can't say no, and I end up tryin' to please her, but then I end up changin' back into a guy so she sees me in girls' clothes or somethin' and…" he trailed off. 

            "Has that really happened? How did you get out of it?"

            "I dunno. She had me dead to rights. She caught me with Akane, when she just thought I was some pervert, but Akane helped me slip out of that. Then, when we thought she left, she snuck in and… Some stupid stuff happened that made her think the 'pervert' was molesting Akane. I use one of Pop's tricks to get away, and she realized it was me, and started goin' on about how the stuff I was supposedly doin' with Akane was okay if I was engaged to her. I thought, if she felt that way, I could finally confront her, but Happosai interfered. He dressed me in a school girl's outfit while we were fighting, and Mother walked in just in time to see it, and remember when she caught me in 'Ranko's' clothes. She started the ceremony for seppuku on the spot," Ranma shuddered, as he relived that fateful night. "I couldn't sit there and take it, so I split. The others came up with this plan to have her catch me peepin' on Akane in the bath, to prove how, in spite of being a 'crossdresser' I had more manly interests. The stupid tomboy! I was all worked up, cuz she always gets so violent if someone sees her naked. Instead of bein' naked, she was wearing her bathing suit covered in soap suds. I couldn't believe it!"

            "What, you actually wanted to see her naked?"

            "You gotta be jokin', right! That macho chick!?" he flinched, expecting a hammer to descend from out of nowhere. When nothing happened he continued, "The point is, she was supposed to be naked when I was peeping so my mom would be convinced that I liked that sort of thing. Naturally, she screwed it up. I figured at that point that I was a dead man."

            "You don't looked gutted and decapitated."

            "Nah, Nabiki said my mom thought I was just acting disappointed. Then Happosai threw some Happodaikarin at me and Mom tried to put out the fuse with the sprayer. Pops knocked me out the window so fast she didn't see me change, and I haven't seen her since then."

            "Were you disappointed?"

            "Why would you even ask?"

            "It's just… are you interested in naked girls at all?"

            "Half the time I am one! Why would I get excited about that?"

            "Uh, good point."

            "Anyway, you ought to understand now why I can't accept my girl side. I have to be a man, or I have to kill myself."

            "Um. Maybe that's how your mom sees it, but, what about you? If you didn't have all of that over your head, would you still fight being a girl?"

            "My mom's only half the problem. All my life I've been nagged by my old man about how weak and useless girls are. Because I've been a girl, I know it's not like he meant," he added quickly, as Copy-chan reared up in anger. "My girl form is weaker than my guy form. Softer and smaller too. It doesn't keep me from being able to fight, which is about all that matters as far as I am concerned. As a girl I trade speed for strength, agility for toughness, and compared to most guys, I am still pretty damn strong. As a student of Anything-Goes, turning into a girl is actually an asset sometimes." He sighed, trying to figure out how to make his point. "Bein' a girl isn't the problem. The problem is not being able to be myself, no matter what I look like."

            Copy-chan studied him for a long moment, before asserting, "You're missing the point. Appearances are just on the surface. Turning into a girl is more than a change of form. It's a change of function. You don't just turn into a 'girl', you become female." From the look on his face, she was stating the obvious, but that did not mean he was getting it. She decided to take a different approach. "Is your dad a better person than your mom, aside from the fact that he's forced her into a situation where she's honor bound to kill you?"

            "Are you kidding!? My old man is like a nightmare. Compared to him, my mom is the best person in the world!"

            "And which of them would you rather take after?"

            "Huh!?" Ranma stared at her in shock. 

            "As a person. A human being, which of them would you rather be like?"

            "I don't ever want to be like Pops!"

            "I didn't ask what you don't want. You can't know somethin' by listing the things you don't want," she retorted saucily. After exchanging glares, she continued. "So, if you had a choice, would you rather take after your mom or your dad?"

            "My mom, I guess."

            "So, even though she is female, you believe she's a better person, a better role model, than your dad," it wasn't quite a question. The statement forced Ranma to pause in thought before nodding hesitantly. 

            "Do you realize that you could be like her? You could be a mother. You could have kids and be the mother for them that you never had."

            "Why would I want that!?"

            Copy-chan sighed and pressed on, "The point is, you can have that. Did you ever consider that? No. Why? Because your dad insulted women every chance he got, and now you think girls are useless, just like your dad!"

            Ranma almost blew up. Unfortunately, she was right, at least about how his father had poisoned his mind about girls. Instead of erupting, the anger seethed as he tried to gather his wits. "Why are you pushing me to be a girl?" he demanded when he could control his voice. 

            Copy-chan stood up and walked out of the room. 

            "Don't walk away! Tell me why you are doing this!" Ranma shouted, jumping up to follow her. She ignored him, entering the upstairs bathroom and going to the sink. Kasumi, on her knees scrubbing near the top of the stairs, stood and casually walked downstairs when she saw them. Ranma paused in the door way as Copy-chan turned on the faucet and splashed her face with cold water. Ranma repeated his question, stepping forward to grab her by the arm, "Why are you pushing me to be a girl?"

            She squeezed her hand over the end of the faucet, sending a spray of cold water into Ranma's face. As Ranma-chan spluttered in anger, she finally answered, "You are a girl. Deny that, you deny a part of yourself. You deny me, and frankly, it pisses me off!"

            "Why!? What the hell should it matter to me, anyway?"

            Before Copy-chan could answer, Genma came up the stairs. The two girls turned to look at him, wondering if he had heard the argument. Genma glared at them and went into the guest room. From inside they heard him speak to Copy-kun.

            "Come downstairs, Boy. I need to speak to you in the dojo."

            Ranma-chan frowned and walked to the door. When her father came out, she confronted him, "What's goin' on, Pop? What do you wanna talk about?"

            Genma did not look at her. "This doesn't concern you. You keep that girl upstairs. I don't want her to interfere." Ranma blinked in shock. For some reason, his old man had got it into his head to play sensei. The tough formality was familiar enough, but his father seemed unusually cold. It sent a shock of alarm through her. She stood there in confusion as Copy-kun filed out after Genma. Copy-chan looked worried, as she joined Ranma-chan at the head of the stairs. 

            "He's up to no good," the part-time girl frowned. 

            "Sounds like that's all he's ever up to," her twin quipped. Standing behind Ranma-chan, an idea came to her. Impulsively, she slipped forward, grabbing Ranma-chan by the hand, and dragged her down the stairs. Instead of leading her through the hall and out to the dojo, she turned as they passed the washroom and led the other girl into the furo.

            "Hey! What are you doin' draggin' me in here!?"

            As she slipped out of her clothes, Copy-chan answered, "I didn't get a hot bath earlier, and you look like you could use one now."

            "We can't go in there together!"

            "Why not? Not like I've got anything you don't know about," she grinned, spinning around in the buff to display the familiar assets. 

            "That's not funny. I warned you two to stop makin' passes at me!"

            "Don't you wanna know if I can bring out the man in you as well as my other half can bring out your girl side?"

            "Uh…"

            "I mean, you must wanna know if it was him or you, right?"

            "Th… that's so mean!"

            "Huh! I thought it sounded like a generous offer! After all," her grin turned evil, "what real man says no to an opportunity for sex!?" 

            "I… I'm not a man right now," Ranma-chan cringed. 

            Copy-chan leaned close, her hands unfastening the ties on Ranma's shirt as she whispered, "Don't worry. I know how to make a man out of you!" Before Ranma could scream in alarm, Copy-chan pressed her mouth over the other girl's and took her breath away. As intended, Ranma-chan chose to take the proposition as a challenge, a way to prove his manhood. 

As Ranma-chan was sinking into a whole new kind of hot water in the bathroom, Shampoo was marching in through the genkan. Nabiki, ever conscious of damage expenses, had left the entrance to the house wide open for her arrival. As the purple-haired amazon stalked into the building, she was craning her neck for any sign of her beloved Airen. "Nihao! Delux Ramen Desert! Shampoo make special for Airen! Ranma? You home now, yes?"

            Kasumi and Nabiki rushed forward, smiles of quite opposite nature gracing their faces.

            "Why, hello, Shampoo! Welcome to our home!"

            "Shampoo! Just the person I was hoping to see!" Nabiki quickly paid for the ramen, escorting the amazon over to the table. "Ranma is out in the dojo, talking with his father. Why don't you go say hi, while Kasumi and I set the table?"

            "Aiyaa! Very strange Mercenary Girl be so nice! Shampoo very surprised!" the girl giggled, bouncing in place as Kasumi took the heaping bowl from her hands. "Shampoo Great-grandmother say Shampoo stay make sure Ranma really enjoy special desert! Is okay!"

            "Sure, Shampoo, make yourself at home," Nabiki fought her grin back under control. 

            Shampoo bobbed a few times, either nodding or bowing in appreciation, before launching herself out through the open shoji. 

            "She is such a happy girl!" Kasumi commented, laying out cups and bowls. 

            "You can't buy that kind of happiness, Kasumi," the middle sister responded, adding to herself, "Nope, the price for that is some form of insanity, I am sure!"

            Outside, as Shampoo ran around the house to get to the dojo, she came to an abrupt halt. Her eyes narrowed as she spied Akane crouched against the screened entrance to the training hall, ear pressed close to hear what Genma found so important to say to Copy-kun. "What Violent Girl doing spying on Shampoo Airen!"

            Akane whipped around and instantly made shushing motions. 

            "You no tell Shampoo 'Shush!" the Amazon pulled out her bonbori and went into attack position. "Shampoo teach Violent Girl not speak so to amazon womans!"

            "Shampoo! Please be quiet! Ranma's father is up to something and I need to find out what!"

            "Ranma father crazy man want Airen marry Violent Girl! Shampoo go save Ranma from evil plot!"

            Akane stared as the girl rushed straight at her, and dodged out of the way. Just before the amazon could knock down the wall and confront Genma, the shoji swept open and Copy-kun looked out in puzzlement. Shampoo lit up at the sight of him, and flung her bonbori away so she could leap in and crush "Ranma" in greeting. "Wo da Airen!"

            "Urk!" Copy-kun wheezed as the air was squeezed out of him. Not having had time to make out the girl's features as she pounced on him out of the darkness, he instantly went into "flee from Kodachi" mode, jumping straight into the air, bouncing off the roof of the house and contorting in his efforts to break Shampoo's grip. Unfortunately, Shampoo was much harder to slip away from than Kodachi. In his panic, he bounced down the length of the roof and spilled the pair of them over the edge. Right into the koi pond, of course. 

            Shampoo, for all she hated it when her Airen dragged them into water in his attempts to escape her embrace, was prepared for the trigger to her curse. As her limbs and body lost the length and mass to sustain a grip on her beloved, she sank her claws in to make sure she remained close to him. As Copy-kun reared up from the pond, screaming from the sensation of cat claws puncturing his flesh, Shampoo realized he was still a him. 

            "Mraow?" she voiced her confusion. What this!? Airen no change!

            Copy-kun, hearing that second bit of evidence, stiffened and looked down. "It'sa… it'sa… it'sa… C-c-c-CAAAAAAT!" Automatically, he tried to plant his hands in Shampoo's furry belly and push her away. Naturally, she dug her claws in and scowled in discomfort. The boy emitted a few strange hiccupping noises and then flopped face forward into the pond. Shampoo squirmed and tried to swim away before his weight could trap her underwater. The instant her claws released, the boy's arms and legs began thrashing in an uncoordinated attempt to put maximum possible distance between him and feline hell. 

            In the bathroom, Ranma-chan jerked out of the arms of her twin as the one, drawn out word penetrated the surrounding neighborhood. The impromptu initiation into making out (which proved to be so engrossing, Ranma had completely forgot about changing form) ceased, as the two girls went cold with fear. Ranma-chan slipped into the washroom, grabbing a robe from the laundry, and rushed out to investigate. "Stay here," she shouted to Copy-chan, before slamming the shoji behind her. Racing through the hall, she caught the delicious aroma of ramen. "Shampoo!" she concluded at once. 

            Shampoo had been distracted, trying to clamber out of the pond, and had caught only a glimpse of "Ranma's" departure. She completely missed the sight of him crawling under the house. It had looked like he was fleeing into the Tea Room. She did not have to question this assumption when she peered into the well lit sitting area and saw Ranma-chan burst in from the hall, wrapped in a loose robe. Their eyes met across that distance. Shampoo, forgetting for an instant that "Ranma" had not changed while in the pond, bounded straight towards the red-head. Ranma-chan eeped in distress and fled back down the hall, past the washroom entrance to the bathroom, and out the door leading to the dojo. 

            Copy-chan heard her twin race by the washroom door, wailing in panic, and poked her head out to see where the danger was. She caught the sight of Ranma-chan's back, legs flashing bare beneath the billowing robe, but mercifully, no cat was on her heels. Or, not closely. Turning to look the other way, she saw the purple-tipped cat coming into the hall from the Tea Room, and flinched back in shock. Unable to even articulate her fear, she screeched and raced into the bathroom. Whattodo!? Whattodo!? What… water! Cat's hate water! she made a beeline straight to the furo, Shampoo hot on her heels. Naturally, jumping into a hot bath with "Ranma" was the last thing the amazon feared. She leapt up to Copy-chan's shoulder as the girl was throwing herself into the steaming water. She let out a scream and plunged in. To her shock, the weight of Shampoo's normal form suddenly materialized on her back, bearing her to the tile bottom of the furo. Rolling in desperation, as a different submerged fear took hold, she dumped Shampoo's weight to the side and lunged up out of the water. 

            Before either girl could get her bearings, the two found themselves locked together at the lips, their limbs entangled. Copy-chan relaxed instantly, having no problems determining that this was not a cat. The next thing through her mind was a fast-becoming-familiar thought. She REALLY liked making out. 

            Shampoo was not prepared for the passionate response. Her mind was still processing the sensations from her body that screamed that something was wrong in Jusenkyo. The water was hot. Airen was still a girl. She found that more important than the kiss. At least, once it penetrated the mountain of bliss the same kiss had perched her on. 

            "What going on!" she gasped, pushing away from Copy-chan.

            "I dunno… but it sure feels good!" Copy-chan mumbled with a silly grin.

            "What wrong with Ranma curse!? First, no change in cold water. Then change in no water. Now no change in hot water! That not right!"

            Copy-chan managed to parse enough of the broken speech to grasp that Shampoo understood the nature of Ranma's curse. She had no idea where the girl had come from, or who she was, but she already knew the most damning thing about her. She was yet another love-struck groupie of the infamous Ranma Saotome. Feeling a new wave of rejection, she pushed the girl away from her hard. "It figures. You only want HIM!"

            "What you say!!!" Shampoo's eyes widened as her mind took the available evidence and jumped to a conclusion. It was, after all, a well traveled path in Nerima. "Why you say that! Ranma curse broken!? You no more can change to boy!?"

            Copy-chan, remembering that there was a cat nearby, had not been paying attention. Catching the last part, and feeling a bit snappish, she retorted. "Do I look like a boy!?" she crouched down and splashed herself with the hot water, "Sorry, it don't work on me. Too bad! Just a girl! Will be for the rest of my life! You'll just have to find someone else!"

            "No, no! Shampoo love Airen! Shampoo get Great-grandmother to help. We find cure!"

            "There is no cure!" Copy-chan screamed in the girl's face. "Just go away! You don't even know me! I'm not your 'Airen', I'm not even Ranma!" She stopped shouting as she saw the girl twitch in shock and pain, her face crumpling into tears. Getting a handle on herself, Copy-chan sighed. "I'm sorry..." she still did not know where the cat went, and she could no longer resist the urge to flee the bathroom, for fear that it was lurking in a corner, ready to pounce on her when she was alone. She rushed out through the washroom, slipping into one of Ranma's big t-shirts, and sprinted in search of a cat-proof room. 

            By the time Ranma-chan and Copy-kun had recovered enough from their fright to return to the house, Shampoo had slipped into clothes from the koi-pond-depository, and raced home to consult with Cologne. Genma was waiting for them, looking royally peeved. He grabbed the pair and marched them upstairs. To their surprise, Genma paused to shove Ranma into Akane's room, where she crashed into Copy-chan cowering on her futon. 

            "You're sleeping in here from now on. I am not going to have you messing with the boy's head anymore," Genma declared, turning and bum-rushing Copy-kun into the guest room. The shoji slammed shut, and the lock clicked loudly into place in the sudden silence. Akane, sitting on her bed, her conversation with Copy-chan interrupted by the ejection of Ranma-chan from the guest room, was too shocked to object to her fiancé's presence. Genma had made a much more shocking statement with his declaration than any of them could believe. Fortunately, Nabiki poked her head in and put it into words for them. 

            "So, your old man traded you in for a newer model, Ranma?"

            "That… that… I'm gonna kill him!" Ranma-chan blazed. 

            "I don't get it," Copy-chan blinked. 

            "Not much to get. Boy. No curse. Good as Ranma at fighting. Totally clueless. The perfect son," Nabiki listed casually. Ranma-chan twitched in pain at every phrase. Before Ranma could rush across the hall and commit murder, Nabiki added, "Well, Ranma, looks like you're finally going to get out of that engagement with Akane."

            Ranma-chan paused in confusion. She looked over at Akane, feeling the bottom dropping out of her stomach, but Akane jerked her head around, refusing to look at her. "A… Akane…"

            "I don't want to hear it, Ranma. Keep the celebration to yourself!"

            "But, that is… I mean…" 

Copy-chan reached around and covered her mouth. Ranma-chan looked at her in shock as Copy-chan shook her head. "Don't say anything. He's a greedy, arrogant, jerk, but it's not going to change anything, right? You still intend to banish us at the end of the week, don't you?" there was a lot of pain in the question. Ranma-chan took a long time to nod in response. They both sighed in misery over it. 

            Halfway across Nerima, the very personification of misery crashed into the dining area of the Cat Café and collapsed, sobbing, at a table. Mousse perked up, from the back of the kitchen where the sound of her distress pierced through the clamor of the most heinous task of washing dishes. He rushed out spouting platitudes, unable to conceal his obvious joy that Ranma had broken her heart and now, at long last, she would turn to him in her grief. 

            "My beloved Shampoo! What has Saotome, that thief of women's hearts, done to hurt you!?"

            "Eat hot lead and jump in lake, Mousse!" she exploded into his face, venting all her rage, all her frustration, and all the betrayal she felt upon his helpless body. Through the violence, she continued to cry, shaking with unbearable gasps of grief. Cologne, Matriarch and Elder of their tribe, arrived from her room upstairs, unable to believe her great-granddaughter's outburst. Her initial efforts to interrupt went entirely unnoticed, so she settled on a nearby table and waited for the girl to come crashing down. It took a while. When the girl was reduced to dry sobs, she hopped over to her on her staff, and inquired.

            "What had happened, dear child, to break your heart so?"

            In a broken voice, with broken words, she sobbed out the events of the evening. The tale was confusing, to say the least, but Shampoo swore that she had seen, first, that Ranma did not turn into a girl when immersed in cold water, and then, after a few minutes, he appeared as a girl who, when immersed in hot water, did not change into a boy. She repeated the conversation she had with Copy-chan word for word, breaking into fresh tears as she repeated the assumed confirmation that the curse was broken, and she would never again become a boy. 

            Cologne sat back, running the reported events through her mind. The only possible scenario she could come up with was that somehow Ranma's curse had been locked again, and he had gotten his hands on some instant nannichaun in the hopes of regaining, if only for a moment, his lost manhood. Was it possible that Herb had returned to punish Ranma after all? If the story Shampoo told, that "Ranma" claimed there was no cure, was true, was it also possible that the Musk had allowed the Kaisuifuu to be destroyed so that Ranma would truly be trapped as a girl? These frightening possibilities were bad enough, but to add that Ranma, by his final remarks, had forsworn his very identity and declared himself a stranger, a ronin… It was unthinkable. 

            At the same time, it had been over a week since Ranma had shown up at the Cat Café to mooch ramen from Shampoo. Very little could make the boy pass on a free meal, unless he had a very good reason to avoid contact with his meal ticket. Cologne picked herself up and patted her great-granddaughter on the shoulder, "Indeed, this sounds most bleak. If all is as it sounds, then son-in-law is in dire peril. I shall investigate this story at once and see if I can determine if there is any solution to it. Be brave, dear Shampoo. Hope is not lost yet."

            "Oh, Great-grandmother! Thank you! Thank you!"

            "Now, go to bed, and think on this no more. When I know what can be done, if anything, I will let you know. Even if son-in-law must spend the rest of his life as a woman, there are still many reasons why we must try to bring him, or her as the case may be, into the tribe." As Shampoo limped upstairs, Cologne allowed the rest of her thoughts to surface. In truth, if there was a way to bring Ranma into the tribe as a woman, if the boy had it in him to be a true woman, Cologne would welcome it above all other options. Still, it was too much to hope that there was anything beyond a resemblance. She returned to her room and the book that lay open on her bed. 

            "Fa Shen," she spoke to the book, "yours was a brilliant, and tragically short life. Is it even possible that you could be reborn a male and a foreigner?" Cologne sighed and continued studying the legends of her ancestors. No one was directly descended from Fa Shen. She had died a virgin. But many surrogates had risen from her grave. After a thousand years, it had become rare for a victim of the nyannichaun to be given her exact form. In the course of her life, it had happened only three times. Two in this most recent generation. The monkey cursed by Herb had not fulfilled the prophesy. The boy… she was still not sure of. "Curse Genma for a fool. To craft a weapon so pure and yet so flawed!" 


	12. The Mirror of Broken Souls

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Twelve: The Mirror of Broken Souls

Under the deep, dark blue of a Tokyo night, the ward of Nerima sprawled like a patchwork quilt stitched together by tiny knots of light. The shrunken form of the Amazon Matriarch attested to the price she had paid to conserve the vitality of her limbs and the keenness of her senses through the onslaught of centuries. Thus, she felt no apprehension bounding across the skyline through the treacherous darkness, in her race to the Tendo Dojo. After promising her great-granddaughter that she would investigate immediately, she had paused only to return to her room and put away the sacred texts and dangerous artifacts by which she tended her tangled web. Through the long months she had chaperoned her heir in her pursuit of Ranma Saotome, she had kept her true interest in the cursed boy a secret. It would not do to leave clues, however obscure, where either of her young charges might stumble across them. It would be enough for them to learn of her thoughts only after she had verified her suspicions or established them as false. If what Shampoo had reported was true, she might know the answer sooner than she had anticipated. 

It all came down to finding a situation that forced young Saotome to yield to his female condition and unlock the part of his psyche that his father had beaten into submission. After the Cat's Tongue incident, Cologne had realized that Saotome could not be forced to embrace femininity, and the Chisuiiton incident had only underscored this. No, as long as there was a hope for his male mind to cling to, the boy would resist the very thought of being a girl. For fear of what might happen if there was no hope in such a situation, Cologne had not attempted to do what she now feared had been done. 

            Oh, she would gladly shatter his masculine psyche. The trick was finding a way to do it that would not spur him to suicide. Or cause his foolish mother to demand his sacrifice to preserve the honor of his honorless family. What curse lay upon that family that their devotion to honor only manifested in self-destructive forms? Why did they not respect that honor enough to avoid such stupid, wasteful situations. 

            "Ah, but if their honor was sound and sane, I could not have manipulated this situation to my own ends. And who am I so speak of honor when I use my own, dear Shampoo as my cat's paw?" Cologne chided herself as the dojo came into view. From the light spilling from the windows, it was clear that the inhabitants were awake yet. Making her way around to the guest room window, she perched in the eves and began to spy on Genma and his son. Cologne sighed. With all they had invested in the boy, there was no question that they would go to any expense to preserve his masculine image. Instant Nannichaun would have the same effects on a victim of a locked curse that it would have on a normal person, enduring until the subject was exposed to hot water. An unlocked curse would reverse the instant version at the application of hot or cold water. Combined with Waterproof Soap, and Ranma would remain man enough to fulfill their demands of him. 

            From the looks on their faces, she had arrived in the wake of some bitter argument, or unpleasant lecture. The boy looked suspicious and defiant, while Genma was stern with patriarchal anger. 

            "Whatever the circumstances, you are my son, Boy. The closest I have to a true son now, and I am obligated to remind you that you owe everything you possess, ultimately, to me," Genma broke the silence. 

            "You're just tryin' to get out of that stupid agreement!" the boy accused. "This is an unforgivable thing to do to your own son, just to save your own worthless hide, and I won't go along with it!"

            "Don't talk back to me, Boy! Are you forgetting that your 'life' would end at the end of the week if I did not offer you this chance!?"

            "Damn you! I can't forget! But if the choice is between ceasin' to exist and sacrificin' my own honor to survive, it really isn't a choice. Forcin' _me_ on Akane, and goin' through with this stupid marriage is even worse! Did you even think about how _she'd_ feel about this plan?"

            "How she feels does not matter. It is her duty, as it is yours."

            Cologne narrowed her eyes. She had suspected the boy cared for the Tendo girl, but she would have put it past him to show this much concern for her feelings. Things were definitely coming to a head! She stiffened suddenly as she felt two well-concealed presences approaching over the roof. She pressed her tiny form deeper into the shadow of the eves, bracing herself between two of the exposed beams as the couple paused on the edge above her. There was a whispered argument between them, that voiceless hissing that obscured all identifying traits. 

            "You already know what they're talkin' about. Why even bother spyin'?"

            "Who says I'm not here to just kill that mangy bastard!?"

            "Can I help?" 

            "Get in line," the speaker leaned over the gutter, anchoring her feet and allowed herself to dangle outside the window. She was joined almost immediately by her partner. As the light spilling from the window caught their faces, Cologne almost dropped out of the shadows in shock. There was no mistaking the distinctive features of onna-Ranma, but even with Cologne's incredible depth of experience, there were few possible explanations for there to be two of her in the same place at the same time. None of which could explain how she—they—could be spying on a third of their ilk through the window. The matriarch's eyes narrowed. It had been many generations since she had been as thoroughly shocked as this. 

            "It looks like he's thinking of killing him for us," the first onna-Ranma commented after a second. 

            The other girl laughed softly. "Did you ever imagine you'd get the chance to watch yourself kill your old man?"

            "Don't laugh. I've never been this angry at him. After everything he's done, this is the one thing I can't forgive," the girl growled dangerously. Inside the two forms had sprung into action. "Dammit! If he kills Pops before I teach him a lesson, I'm gonna wring his neck!"

            Cologne watched the other girl grab the first and restrain her. 

            "He won't. He only angry, not homicidal, like you! If you go in there, Kasumi will be up all night mopping blood out of the guest room," she tried to sound reasonable. The other girl shook with rage but subsided. 

            "I should have known, the minute he stepped out of the mirror, that my old man would come up with this!" she snarled after a moment.

            Cologne's eyes grew even wider. She squinched them shut for fear they would drop right out of her skull and splat into the upside-down girls' faces. There was only one mirror she knew of with the power to clone human beings. As far as she knew, it had been lost at sea over a thousand years ago. By whatever perverse luck the Mirror of Broken Souls might have been recovered from the depths of the ocean, its powers should at least still have been sealed! Trust Ranma to find it and break the seal! This was by far a more serious situation than what her great-granddaughter had reported to her!

            "Son-in-law!" she announced her presence. "Are you saying you have been duplicated by the Mirror of Broken Souls!?"

            "Gaaaaaaaaaah!!!"   
            "Kyaaaaaaaaaa!!!" 

            The two girls dropped from the gutter to the ground below, too surprised by Cologne's voice to flip and brace for the impact. Two meaty thwacks echoed up, followed by moans and complaints. "What didja do that for!? Crazy old hag!"

            Cologne, having dropped after them, arrived with two resounding cracks to their skulls. "Such poor manners, in stereo no less!" She glared at them and bounced back to balance on her staff. "Now, answer my question."

            "Mirror of Broken Souls? Is that a big oval mirror, about two stories tall with an ornate frame?" Ranma-chan asked, rubbing her head.

            "The man at Mirror Mansion never mentioned that it had a name," Copy-chan murmured, doing the same. "All he talked about was how the ghost of that dead noble woman possessed the mirror and uses it to steal people's reflections so she can search for true love."

            Cologne stared at them. "First, that is, unfortunately, a fair description of the Mirror of Broken Souls. Secondly, don't be ridiculous. If people's ghosts had the power to enchant items with such dangerous abilities there would not be an object on this planet that was safe for people to use!"

            The two girls stared at her for a moment before Ranma-chan challenged, "So, you're tellin' us that the man from Mirror Mansion lied to us?"

            "Oh, I am sure he told you as much as he knew. The mirror has a long history, and great lengths were taken to ensure that as few people as possible knew of any of it," the elder assured them. 

            "So naturally, you know all about it," Ranma-chan sneered.

            "Say, who is this old mummy, anyway?" Copy-chan asked her.

            Cologne bashed her in the head and huffed in indignation. "If you were a proper copy of the original, you'd already know who I am, and you'd still be as obnoxious and disrespectful!" She composed herself and thought. While she knew the legends of the mirror, she did not know enough to explain what she was seeing. In the legends, only one cursed individual had been exposed to the mirror, and his fate had not been accurately reported. All she did know was that only a cursed person could produce more than one reflected aspect. Now, the same had clearly happened with Ranma. 

            "Having seen the boy upstairs, I presume you," she pointed at Ranma-chan, "are the original. She," she indicated Copy-chan, "mentioned that a ghost possessed the mirror and somehow interferes with it. At least that would explain why she does not remember me. I believe I would have to investigate personally to determine what has really happened, but I can tell you this. Because you have been split into your component aspects, you are in great danger, Ranma."

            "What!?"

            "You didn't ask why the mirror was called the Mirror of Broken Souls," Cologne pointed out. "I can also see from your reaction that you only suspected that she was truly part of yourself."

            "But she's a girl!" Ranma-chan protested. "I mean, right from the start she was chasing guys and wearing dresses and lingerie. I'm not like that!"

            Cologne studied the two for a moment. What a perfect opportunity to point out something that had thus far eluded the cursed boy. "Of course she's a girl. She doesn't have any reason to deny what she is. Unlike you, with all that garbage you got from your parents!"

            Ranma-chan puffed up in anger, "Just because my curse turns me into a girl doesn't mean I am one! I am sick of you people tellin' me that!"

As Ranma-chan lost her temper, and her aura flared into the visible spectrum, Cologne's eyes narrowed in scrutiny. What she saw forced her to set aside the question of Ranma's femininity for the moment. Absorbed in reading the cursed boy's aura, she unconsciously voiced concerned disapproval under her breath. After several moments, with Cologne humming and hawing in contemplation, the two girls became curious. At one point, Cologne's gaze wandered from Ranma-chan to Copy-chan, then back to Ranma. Finally, she looked up, and launched herself back up to the guest room window. With a sigh, she dropped back to the ground and cleared her throat. 

            "As I feared, energy is bleeding away from you and your duplicates," she announced. 

            "What!?"

            "Let us go inside and sit down to discuss this," Cologne suggested, hopping on her staff around to the screened entrance to the Tea Room. Both girls followed in dreadful anticipation. Once they were all seated at the low table, Cologne began to tell them the legend of the mirror. "As you may know, there is a spring in Jusenkyo called the Chaunshontsuniichaun, Spring of Drowned Twins. This happens to be one of the trickier cursed springs because it is the closest to having a permanent, natural result. Cold water splits an individual into two perfect copies of the original, but hot water can only reverse the curse if both individuals are in skin-to-skin contact when it is applied. The tragedy of this particular curse is that the twined person ends up in a conflict with herself over her original identity. 

            "In spite of this, there have been many seduced by the prospect of being in two places at once who have been tempted to seek this curse, or its effects," she continued. "Eleven or twelve hundred years ago, a powerful Chinese emperor fell prey to this temptation, but felt that the water triggers were too unpredictable. He commanded his court sorcerers to find a way to harness the magic of the spring in a way that eliminated this flaw. Their solution was to create a mirror using sand dredged from the Chaunshontsuniichaun. As required, the mirror had the power to duplicate anyone who gazed into the it. Unfortunately, the techniques used to harness the magic were unknowingly flawed. Unlike the spring, which produced two whole individuals, the mirror caused the essence of those who looked into it to be divided between the original and the reflection. Worse, as the distance between the reflection and the original increased, straining the constant flow of ki between them, the vital energy would bleed out of them. 

            "This is what caused the mirror to become known as the Mirror of Broken Souls. Given enough time, the division would cause its victims to spiritually bleed to death," the matriarch explained in a mix of anger and sadness. "Over the course of generations, the mirror claimed the lives of countless rulers and heroes. In some cases, the twins fought over their identity, and when one died, the other swiftly followed. In other cases, the two went separate ways and suddenly sickened and died after a couple of weeks. It took a long time for the curse of the mirror to become understood, since those who used it tended to do so in secrecy. A special frame was created and bound to the mirror to seal its power, when it was discovered that the mirror was indestructible. In spite of this, it remained a potential danger, so it was placed on a ship that was sailed to the high seas and sunk."

            The two girls stared on in shock. "Are you sure it's the same mirror?"

            "I would have to see it for myself to be sure," Cologne admitted.

            "But if it is, then my copies will eventually kill me?"

            "It is possible, Son-in-law. Your curse, however, might alter things."

            "What do you mean?"

            "There is a legend that tells of an individual, cursed much like yourself, who used the mirror. Like you, he was able to produce more than one reflection, and while the legend goes on to say that he simply disappeared without a trace, there are other tales that suggest that the reflections survived," Cologne confided. "His particular curse was to turn into a young boy, and there are accounts of encounters with the two posing as father and son during the next twenty years. From those stories, it is possible to presume that being split into separate aspects cured him. Under the proper circumstances, the same thing can happen using water from the Chaunshontsuniichaun or a special magical incense burner. All three are potential cures few cursed individuals have been brave enough to risk."

            Ranma-chan was thunderstruck. Then she was angry, "You mean to say that you've known all along at least three ways to cure me and you never mentioned it!"

            "Now, don't be hasty, Son-in-law. I point out that I have never confirmed any of these potential cures, and from what I can see they all have a dangerous and painful price."

            "What do you mean?"

            "What these 'cures' all have in common is that they split the victim into permanently cured and permanently cursed incarnations. Each one with the same mind as the original. At the very least, the cursed half becomes suicidal, but as often as not they try to take revenge on the cured half. It's hardly an ideal solution!"

            Copy-chan, listening to all of this, spoke up, "But, I'm perfectly fine with being a girl. I mean, technically, I already am the permanently cursed half, but I'm perfectly happy with the way I am. Apart from being alone, that is."

            "Ah, but something went wrong with you, and I presume your counterpart," Cologne pointed out. "You two have no conscious memory of being Ranma. I can tell just by observing you that you possess his skill and character, probably his weaknesses too. The rest is buried and locked away."

            "Uh," Ranma-chan was frowning, "It also sounds like, with this 'cure' I have to die while they get to take over my life!"

            "That is very observant, Son-in-law. Truly, you are in dire peril."

            Copy-chan looked on in growing alarm. She remembered Ranma-chan telling her that when she became intimate with her other half, it caused Ranma to feel like she was being torn in half. In a timid voice, she quickly explained her compulsion and Ranma's ultimate objection to their efforts to fulfill it. "Is it possible that makin' out or having sex would literally tear Ranma-chan in half?"

            Cologne, after swallowing her eyeballs back into her head, tried to puzzle that one over. She knew, better than most, how much spiritual energy was invested in intercourse, and it made sense that as the copies became aroused they drew yin and yang in opposite directions away from Ranma. Cologne stood up and spoke with all her formidable authority, "I would strongly recommend that the two of you avoid any kind of intimate activity if you value the life of Ranma Saotome!"

            "Like they can stop themselves," Ranma-chan grumbled, feeling doomed. She leaned forward, resting her forehead on the table and sighed. Strangely enough, she had recognized at once the danger of either copy dying. It had been clear in Cologne's story that when a victim killed his duplicate, he inflicted a mortal wound upon himself. Her debt to Akane and Ryouga suddenly tripled. "Hell, we're lucky we haven't all killed each other already!"

            Copy-chan looked down at her hands in her lap. "Would… would the threat to Ranma be erased if we both went back into the mirror?"

            Cologne was deeply absorbed in her thoughts, wrestling with her conscience, when she heard the question. She allowed her gaze to travel between the two girls while she tried to decide how to answer. Allowing Ranma to be divided was an ideal solution to her problem, but she could not look at Ranma-chan and condemn her so easily to death. The child had accomplished so much, impressed her so frequently, that she had become genuinely attached to Ranma. With a sigh, she finally answered, "Theoretically, the damage caused by the mirror would be undone if the reflections returned to it. It is a tough call to make, considering how desperately Son-in-law desires a cure. I imagine that there is a reason why you were not both returned immediately, so perhaps there is time to test some things before we resort to that option. After all, that would be trading two deaths for one. How morbidly ironic."

            "What sort of tests?"

            "Well, for one, we should see if we can get the copies to remember being you," she responded to Ranma-chan's question. What she kept to herself was her intention to see if she could get one of them to remember being someone else altogether. 

In the morning, the entire household was shocked to find Cologne, flanked by the exhausted forms of Shampoo and Mousse, waiting for them at the breakfast table. Her appearance was enough to even cause Genma to suspend his plans to announce his intentions to shift the engagement with Akane to Ranma's copy, or rather, officially replace Ranma with his "true son". Because Cologne had roused Shampoo and Mousse and prepared a large breakfast for the Tendo family to ease their intrusion into the dojo at such an early hour, even Kasumi was able to take a place at the table to hear what the matriarch had to say. The last two to come to the table were Ranma-chan and Copy-chan in rumpled pajamas. The dark circles under their eyes, and their haunted expressions, combined with their utter lack of surprise at the presence of the guests, boded ill for the meeting. The fact that they slumped at the table and did not even try to join Copy-kun in a mad grab for food, was enough to turn the other's confusion into genuine alarm. 

            Kasumi's cheerful greeting to the amazons remained the only utterance of the morning until Genma turned to the matriarch and cleared his throat.

            "Well, old woman, what nonsense brings you here this morning?"

            "Polite as ever, Genma," she frowned. "Since you prefer to be blunt, so shall I. Following Shampoo's visit last night, I felt compelled to come here and investigate the latest folly to befall Son-in-law. To my regret, I discovered that your son is in peril of his life. Not too surprising, Genma, the fault for his new condition is ultimately yours."

            Genma scowled at her but did not deign to respond. 

            Rather than continue to goad the worthless father, she proceeded to tell the legend of the Mirror of Broken Souls, repeating what she had told the twin onna-Ranmas the night before. As the tale started, with mention of the Spring of Drowned Twins, there were a few comments of recognition. As she proceeded to tell of the mirror's creation, most of their faces showed anticipation of how this mirror came to produce Copy-chan and Copy-kun. As she spoke of the mirror's fatal flaw, Copy-kun suddenly lost his appetite while the others stared at the copies with mixed emotions. No one wanted to look at Ranma-chan. When Cologne mentioned the hypothetical use of the mirror as a cure for a Jusenkyo curse, along with the shortcomings cures of that nature had, Genma and Soun shook off their confusion and began to celebrate. Everyone else had to jump on top of Ranma-chan to keep her from killing the pair of them.

            "Is that all the matters to you!" the girl screamed from the bottom of the pile. "You'd have me die so that imposter can take my place and fulfill your stupid schemes!"

            "You ungrateful child! You would put your own survival over the honor of our two families!" Genma retorted, as Soun restrained him. 

            "Why not! You do it all the time, Pop!"

            "Both of you, just stop it!" Akane yelled. In a calmer voice she turned to Cologne, looking out from her position in the dog pile. "So what you're saying is, the only solution to this is for Ranma, or his copies, to die!?"

            "In effect, that is correct. The original can only survive in the copies cease to exist. If they continue to exist, the original will be destroyed."

            "Shampoo so so sad. Is terrible tragedy!" the purple haired amazon wiggled out of the pile to get away from Mousse, who seemed to be rather conveniently sprawled over her. 

            "I too feel that such a 'cure' is too horrible to contemplate!" Mousse declared, as he struggled out of the pile and straightened his robes. 

            "Are you absolutely sure!?" Akane demanded. 

            "Yes, child, I am afraid so. From what I understand, you intended to force the copies to return to the mirror, where they can no longer exist as independent beings. All I have revealed is that Son-in-law also faces oblivion should this circumstance be exploited as a cure. For the individuals in question, there is no question that this is a matter of life and death. Moreover, the decision as to who shall meet their end can only be decided by them."

            "If the copies are really such a danger, why hasn't Ranma been harmed already?" Nabiki asked calmly. 

            "Simply put, Ranma has remained in close proximity to his copies, minimizing the amount of spiritual bleeding. To say he has been unharmed, however, would be remiss. I understand that the copies are compelled to somewhat amorous extremes and have been indulging each other to sate themselves. Yesterday, before lunch, according to Copy-chan, Ranma was struck down by the sight of them 'making out' as she put it. The energy that sustains them all flows between them, and if any individual makes too great a demand on that energy it leaves the others drained or depleted."

            "Uh, wait! Hinnako is constantly draining Ranma's aura. Is that any different than what happens between these three?"

            "That's actually an astute observation, Akane. What is happening to this trio is precisely the same as having a chi vampire constantly sucking energy off of them. In the case of that delinquent teacher, there are limits to the amount of energy she can leech by force making it unlikely that she would be able to kill one of her victims with any given attack. However, if the energy is freely available, she could soak up the chi of an entire city." Cologne frowned. "Honestly, with these three bleeding like this, she could accidentally kill them with her lowest level attack."

            "Ranma, you're not going to school!" Akane, Nabiki, Copy-chan and Copy-kun shouted. The news itself had distracted Ranma-chan from her impulse to murder Genma. She stared at Cologne.

            "You're kiddin', right!?"

            "No. I would heed the advice of your… uh…" there was no word to categorize the group that was sitting on top of Ranma-chan. "Do try to avoid Miss Hinnako. I would recommend that you have people around who can deal with her if she seeks you out."

            "What about Happosai?" Ranma-chan asked. "He tried to leech chi off all three of us the first night. Why didn't that hurt us?"

            Cologne laughed, "Though I often feel that man is a demon, he is no vampire. He can pull off latent ki, such as lingers on people's clothing, but he certainly has not risked the modifications that would allow him to feed on chi as his protégé does. The essence he gathers is akin to dead hair and skin, naturally shed from the 'body' of his victims' ki."

            "Oh," Ranma-chan frowned. Sitting up, casually shedding the pile of bodies on top of her, she became thoughtful. "It seems to me that, as I've developed my chi, I've gotten a lot better at dealing with Hinnako's leeching. I would think that if I worked at it, I should be able to do something about this bleeding. I mean, if I can actually limit what she can take from me, and control it for my attacks, it seems logical enough that I could fix this."

            Cologne studied him. She had given up on underestimating his ability when it came to the mechanics of his Art. It was one of the reasons she had been hopeful that he was Fa Shen reborn. She had been a genius at the Art, particularly when it came to using chi to harm or heal. She was still, short of the royal line of the Musk, the youngest individual to ever master chi techniques. "You would have to work with your copies to attempt such a thing, and I cannot say how liable you are to succeed. If it were anyone else, I might say such an endeavor was impossible. You will have to learn a few things more suited to the practice of medicine and healing than martial arts, but you have a sufficient base to start. We will include that, along with trying to tap the memory of your copies, to the things we must pursue while waiting for the mirror's seal to be repaired."

            Genma looked at the three Ranmas as they huddled together. He cleared his throat, "Ranma. I understand you feel that I have dishonored you by presenting Copy-kun as my true son." Ranma-chan slowly turned hate filled eyes on her father. When her old man had the dignity to blanch and swallow hard, she allowed him to continue speaking. "I simply remind you that there are reasons, above and beyond my own well being, which necessitate my decision. For one, I have deeply regretted that the nature of your curse had made it necessary to hide from your mother. She does not deserve it, and while I do fear for our lives should she find your condition unmanly, I also fear that upon completing her role in our execution, she would feel compelled to take her own life." Genma took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes for a moment. 

            Ranma sucked in a sharp breath as Genma disguised his tears. Her father would weep crocodile tears to guilt trip her, but was quick to disguise genuine emotion. She said nothing as his damp fingers came away from his red, swollen eyes. 

            "It also occurred to me that returning your copies to the mirror would be no different from killing them. I am a harsh man at times, but I am not a killer. Is it so unreasonable then, to look at this perfect boy, see in him a son that any mother and father could be proud of, and know that he could be the solution to all our problems?" Genma sighed. "Finally, you have voiced nothing but complaint against your engagement to Akane. While I truly hoped you would come to love the daughter of my good friend and ally, I cannot ignore that here is a boy longing for love, with no other hope for life. I put him in your place not just for me, but for you, for him, and most of all for my beloved Nodoka."

            "But at the same time, you've pushed me aside like some worn out rag!" Ranma-chan cried, just managing to voice more outrage than grief. Even now, she could not bear to show how deeply wounded she was by her father's betrayal. 

            "I would have thought you'd be glad to rid yourself of me, of this engagement. I've watched you try and throw everything away on the hope of finding some cure. From the moment you fell into that pool, you have lost your respect for me, so who cast aside who first?" Genma challenged.

            Ranma-chan subsided into shocked silence. 

            "It does not matter now. There can only be one Ranma Saotome, and this boy is better suited. It does not mean you are not my child, or that I would prefer to see you dead. Still, you're a fool if you don't understand that I am always willing to risk your life for the sake of the Art and for family honor, and that is not going to change now, just because you are as much a daughter as a son. Do not challenge my decision unless you truly mean to uphold the responsibilities that come with your name!" Genma declared with uncommon authority.

            Ranma-chan's mind was still stuck on the "as much a daughter as a son" comment. Did even her own father see her as a girl? Did her misogynistic old man feel some impulse to be unforgivably soft on her because in some part of his warped mind he had gained a daughter? Was this whole notion of his some warped way of going easy on her, giving her a way out of all her responsibilities as a man? In a strangled voice she demanded, "Am I a son or a daughter to you?"

            "I am waiting to learn that from you. At least now you can afford to consider the question."

            "What the hell brought this on!?"

            "Son," Genma sagged, "When your mother is here, all I can do is watch and listen. I can't tell you how many times she's sat down beside me, Mr. Panda, watching you fighting with Akane, or working out in the yard, and wished aloud that you were her daughter."

            "What!?"  
            "Your mother always wanted a daughter. When we married, she told me she might not be able to have children, but if she could, she hoped for a daughter, like the one she had in her dreams. Of course, we both wanted, needed a son. For her, it was a requirement of her father's, for me, I needed a son to fulfill my pact with Tendo-kun," he sighed. "But Nodoka still only wished for a daughter. If you were that daughter, she would accept you with no strings attached. But that is only possible if you are not Ranma, do you understand?"

            Cologne looked on, almost unable to contain herself. 


	13. Cutting to the Chase

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Thirteen: Cutting to the Chase

Everyone assembled at the Tendo Dojo looked up in alarm as Ranma-chan lurched to her feet and stalked out the open shoji into the yard. She stopped at the edge of the koi pond and gradually looked down into the still waters to study her reflection. For a long time there was no other movement. Rather than continue the strange conversation while she was brooding, the others turned to their meal and ate in silence. Kasumi, looking positively torn for the young martial artist, leaned over to Akane and whispered a suggestion. Akane, looking positively thunderstruck, calmed and nodded before slipping out of the room to use the phone. The copies had been studying Genma sternly between troubled glances at Ranma-chan. Finally they stood and cautiously approached the original. Ranma tensed as they flanked her on either side, but when they said nothing, she returned to wrestling with her tumultuous thoughts. Too much had happened in such a short period of time. Life had rubbed her nose in a number of impossible things, and no matter how earth shattering they had been, Ranma had taken them in stride. This latest blow, however, was simply beyond belief.

            Ranma's mother wanted a daughter. Had wished "Ranko" was her daughter. Taking an unsteady breath, she tried to deal with what was happening inside her. Ranma could not bear to deny anything to Nodoka. For months now, that had been something of a lifeline, since what Nodoka had apparently wanted more than anything, was to see her son again. To see that he was a true man-among-men. Ranma's determination to ensure that, to make Nodoka proud of her son, had been a touchstone for dealing with the curse, particularly when dealing with her mother as "Ranko". 

            Ranma-chan lifted her hands and studied them. Her hands. Every day she reminded herself that all of the girl stuff had been imposed on her by outside forces. She had not asked for it, she tried her best not to be seduced by it into asking questions or experimenting with things that, as a boy, she would never be able to reconcile. Shaking her head, she sighed. It was sort of funny. Genma had forced her to ask herself if she would sacrifice everything and become a girl to make Nodoka happy. It had seemed instantly absurd to try and base who and what she was on what someone else wanted her to be. Of course, that's what Ranma had been doing all her… his… life. It seemed painfully clear that, if turning into a girl made her an unsuitable son, turning into a boy would make her an equally imperfect daughter. Which was why Genma's revelation really disturbed her. 

            There was a better way to give her mother everything she wanted. The perfect son, the desired daughter, were standing on either side of her. It was a much simpler, more practical solution, than trying to warp her brain around the ridiculous notion of becoming a girl. Or, more honestly, trying to give up being a boy. About the only way she could palette giving up being a boy to be a girl, was if she went off and became an amazon. At least there a girl was considered a first class citizen. "Feh! Like that's any better," she muttered. Hanging her head she finally admitted that her desire for a cure had long since ceased to be an effort to never be a girl again. Honestly, if she found a cure it would be like chopping off limbs to take it, but the temptation… the desire to be "normal" was so strong. With the curse, she was just a freak and she hated that. 

            "Do you know," she began speaking quietly to the copies, "when Herb locked my curse, and I didn't know if it could be unlocked, I wondered if maybe I could be adopted by my mom as Ranko. I mean, I could never have told her I was Ranma if I was stuck as a girl. I could just let it slip that my parents were gone and that's why Ranko was always visiting the Tendos…" She trailed off. "It was just for a moment. I was feeling kinda sorry for myself. The thought of lying to my mom for the rest of my life made me feel so much worse, I swore I'd find a cure. I don't wanna be her daughter if that means I can't tell her I'm her son. If I can't say who I really am, I just can't do it."

            Copy-chan slipped an arm around and hugged her.

            "But, you can," Ranma-chan added, including both of them.

            "What?"

            "What're you talkin' about!?"

            "Maybe I should treat this as a cure," Ranma-chan clarified. 

            "You mean, just die!?"

            "I dunno. Maybe. Or maybe…" Ranma-chan shrugged.

            "What?"

            "Maybe if Mom has the son she needs, and the daughter she wants, maybe she won't hate havin' a freak like me." They gave her a startled look. She straightened and asserted, "I ain't sayin' I wanna die. Just that its worth the risk if it means I can finally tell her the truth. If she sees you and decides you're man enough, you and Pops won't havta commit seppuku, so I doubt she'd make me do it either." A determined look settled on her face. 

            "What exactly are you thinking of doing, Ranma?" Akane asked from just behind them. None of them had noticed her approach. 

            "I guess I am gonna go with Cologne and see if she can help me figure out how to stop bleeding ki, and help them remember bein' me."

            "I see," Akane sighed and hung her head. She found herself wondering if it would be the same—if Copy-kun remembered being Ranma—continuing the engagement with him. Would she ever see him as the real Ranma? Did it even matter? "So, that means I am engaged to him then?"

            Ranma-chan whipped around and stared at Akane. The question had stabbed her in the heart, and for a moment, she panted to keep her breath. She was not sure, but it sounded like Akane was disappointed. Ranma-chan remembered when Akane had gotten mad and transferred the engagement to Nabiki a few months ago. It had not been a pleasant experience for any of them. She looked at Copy-kun hard for a moment. "I don't think my old man can just change it to him like that. As long as I honored the engagement, it was my choice who it was with. If Copy-kun remembered bein' me, we'd have to figure out who was gonna be responsible for it. Since he doesn't, then I guess it stays with me for now."

            "Okay," Akane nodded once, faintly blushing. 

            Shampoo and Mousse, sitting quietly to either side of Cologne, studied the group by the pond with narrow eyes. Neither of them were entirely sure how to deal with Ranma as a multiple choice question. Shampoo was wondering if the laws of her people should be interpreted such that she was effectively married to all three. In her mind, only the original mattered, especially when the copies had no memory of being Ranma. She knew some of the elders would have insisted that the kiss if marriage applied only to the male half. They would have also insisted that this situation obligated her to fulfill the kiss of death given to the female half. Great-grandmother had assured them that the three were all the same person. Since killing one could slay all three, Shampoo felt confident no one would criticize her for not fulfilling the kiss of death. Catching a glimpse of Mousse out the corner of her eye, she changed that to "almost no one". The master of hidden weapons considered everything Ranma-shaped to be an obstacle to his desires, and he was an amazon. He was not above killing to remove a threat to his plans, nor using the law to turn another into his weapon.

            Fortunately, neither of them were likely to defeat one Ranma, let alone three. Their weakness was a good excuse for her not to try. Their common identity was enough for her to extend her protection to all of them if Mousse dared to use lethal force to challenge the unconsummated union. 

            Shampoo suddenly sat straight. If the kiss of death did apply to the girl Ranma, so would the consequences if she managed to survive the one year ordeal. In about two months, the girl would be fully initiated into the tribe, protected by the laws of her people from the likes of Mousse. "Great-grandmother, Shampoo wonder how long take Airen try to master stop bleeding spirit? Shampoo no hear of anyone try to do such thing," she inquired.

            "Do not worry, Shampoo," Cologne patted her heir on the knee. "Son-in-law is full of surprises. As long as the three stick together and do nothing foolish, it would take months for the bleeding to kill them. We should probably consult that fine young doctor friend of Kasumi's and see if he will join us in helping Ranma find a way to survive his 'cure'."

            "Kasumi already thought of that," Akane interjected, coming back in and catching the end of the elder's remark. "I just got off the phone making an appointment for Ranma and the copies to see him this morning."

When Ranma and the copies rejoined the others at the table, there was a long discussion about how to proceed. Ranma stressed that she did not intend to die, but if the copies could manage to regain the memory of being Ranma she would consider allowing them to succeed her as Ranma and Ranko. Genma had been correct in assuming Ranma would be willing to die for a cure, and the prospect of reuniting Nodoka with her son and giving her a daughter was enough to justify the risk in Ranma's mind. Not wanting to die, if there was any way to avoid it, she would do her best to work with the copies to find a way to stop the bleeding permanently if possible. The first order of business was to visit Dr. Tofu that morning, and then accompany Cologne to Mirror Mansion so she could confirm the identity of the mirror and figure out how the ghost had interfered with it, and with the copies it produced. Akane would go with them to the doctor's office and deliver a note from Tofu to the school, excusing him from class. Because of Ranma, the school administration had been forced to accept the magic of the curse, and would have to accept the doctor's assertion that a life threatening complication had emerged because of it. 

            Even after the long discussion, there was still plenty of time for Akane and Nabiki to make it to school. Nabiki went directly to school to deal with Kuno. It would take some effort to explain that the objects of his obsessions were in mortal danger and would not be present for the near future. Somehow, she would convince the Kuno siblings to back off until the three were less vulnerable. Shampoo and Mousse were sent away to deal with opening and running the Cat Café while Cologne was occupied for the day. As the matriarch led the way to Dr. Tofu's, in a probing conversation with the copies, Akane followed with Ranma-kun a few paces behind. 

            "I still can't believe it's come to this," she confessed after a few minutes.

            "I dunno," Ranma shrugged. "It's sorta the story of my life. I should've expected somethin' like this was gonna happen eventually."

            "Well," Akane frowned, "strange things do happen a lot with you, but that's not what meant. I can't believe you would sacrifice yourself to save your copies. I can't believe you would let anyone take your place."

            "Yeah. They're not just anyone, though. If the mummy is right… ite!" Ranma rubbed his head where Cologne's staff had crowned him, "If she's right, they're both me. I've been hit on the head enough times to know what it's like to have no memory of myself. Just 'cuz I didn't remember who I was didn't mean I wasn't me. I guess I'm lucky that hasn't happened to me when I was a girl, or I might've been like Copy-chan. Man, that would be horrible!"

            "Er," Akane bit her lip, deciding it was best not to mention when Ranma _had_ thought he was a girl after bashing her head on the rock border of the pond. "Don't take this the wrong way, but what's so bad about being a girl, Ranma?"

            Ranma almost replied without thinking. Snapping his mouth shut at the last second he remembered what Copy-kun had said the night before. "Nothin' if you happen to be a girl. It's not good if you're a guy though. I mean, what would you call a guy who tries to dress or act like a girl or chase other guys?"

            That was a no-brainer for Akane, "A pervert!"

            "Yeah. Would you wanna be called a pervert by people 'cuz you look like a girl, but they know you're supposed to be a boy?"

            Akane opened her mouth and stared at Ranma. She did not dare to answer. She was doing it to him all the time. After a moment, she tried another angle. "Well, if you had amnesia, and didn't know you were ever a boy, why would it be horrible to be like Copy-chan?"

            Ranma did not answer for a moment. He was staring at the mentioned girl, looking worried. Sighing, he explained, "Because one day I might remember, and everything I had done as a girl would be right there in my face. All the things I swore I would never do, and suddenly they would all have been done and I could never take them back. I don't know if I could live with myself after somethin' like that. I… I don't know if I could be a guy after that. I wouldn't know how to be me, I guess."

            Akane followed his gaze to Copy-chan. "Have you warned her?"

            "Yeah. We were up all night talking about it. Before that, she was acting like you, wantin' to know why I didn't like being a girl. Then Cologne came and we found out she was not just a copy, that she might be able to remember bein' me. She wanted to know how I'd react to being stuck permanently as a girl, so I told her about Herb and the Chisuiiton."

            "Maybe it would be better for her to just go back into the mirror then."

            "That's what I told her. She said she'd rather be alive and hate it, than not even exist. She said that as long as she was alive she could find some way to start over, be happy," Ranma shrugged and looked at his feet. 

            Akane stopped her fiancé as they reached the clinic. After the other three had entered, she asked, "What if you succeed. What if you find a way for all three of you to survive. Are you really going to let him take your place? And her? Where will that leave you?" She looked away and then down for a moment before meeting his eyes again, "Where will that leave us?"

            Ranma took a deep breath. "We're always fighting because of this stupid engagement. We both hate it, 'cuz we never had a choice. Whatever happens, it's the same for you, you still have to marry Ranma. Still, if I am not Ranma anymore, maybe we can finally be friends like we were at the very beginning," he sighed and looked away. 

            Akane was lost in a vortex of anger, grief and confusion. The answer evaded expressing any feeling beyond a desire for friendship. That was both touching and stabbed her through the heart. Was that all she was to him? A friend? And the engagement, that was just an unwanted burden? True, she felt that too, but… if he did not love her, why would the other one? Why, when more than ever she could not escape from him, did she feel like she was losing him? "Do you really want to be friends?" she asked in a small voice.

            "I'd like to have the chance," Ranma fidgeted. "It's not like I have so many friends I don't need another. I don't even know what it's like to have just a friend with no other complications." There was no question that his thoughts had turned to Ukyo. He really hated Genma for taking the best thing from his childhood and turning it into something he just could not deal with. 

            Cologne came out from inside the clinic. "Dr. Tofu is ready to see you now, Son-in-law," she announced, holding a note out to Akane. "Here is the note to excuse Ranma from his classes, Akane. You had better hurry if you plan on making it to school on time." The girl took the piece of paper and looked down. She did not care for the dismissal, but at least the old woman was trying to be polite about sending her on her way and taking charge of Ranma. 

            Ranma reached out and put a hand on her arm. She looked up at his face. "I'll see you when you come home from school," he promised with a little smile. She nodded and resumed walking towards Furinkan High. 

            Cologne sighed. It was these little moments of crisis that had made her job so difficult. Worse, this was not a good time to goad Shampoo into pressing her pursuit of the boy. He needed to trust them a great deal if he was going to benefit from their help. He was finally in a position where she could try and establish whether or not the boy was Fa Shen reborn. It would be a tragedy if the same crisis provoked the true establishment of a relationship that must not form, if indeed he was. She would have to see if there was any way to encourage Genma's plan to shift the engagement to the male reflection without alienating the boy. She blinked. By the same logic, she might want to shift her focus to the female reflection. She seemed a more suitable vessel for awakening the lost amazon heroine. Turning her mind to this, she followed Ranma inside the clinic.

            As they passed through the waiting room, Cologne told Ranma that she had given Dr. Tofu a quick run down on the situation. Tofu had taken one look at the copies, standing side by side and noted aloud that however Ranma had split himself, the process left him bleeding vital energy. Cologne had directed his attention outside to see the original taking with Akane, and told him about the Mirror of Broken Souls. While Tofu ushered the pair into the examining room, Cologne had fetched Ranma. Once they had joined the rest in the examining room, and Ranma had joined his copies perched on the edge of an examination table, they filled the doctor in on all the details. 

            "I have to say, Ranma-kun, this is truly an extraordinary mess you've gotten yourself into. I am glad to hear that this occurred by accident and not through some heedless pursuit of a cure," Tofu declared, once the story was complete. By this point the three were stripped down to their underwear, draped in thin cotton medical gowns, and congregating to hear the results of the complete physicals the doctor had required. 

            "To be honest, if someone had told me it could be used as a cure, I probably would have jumped at it," Ranma confessed sheepishly. 

            "Then it is fortunate that I have not had a chance to tell you the results of my latest sabbatical," Tofu laughed impishly. With the influx of cursed individuals to Nerima, he had been forced to do some extensive traveling to find doctors more experienced in treating cursed patients to expand his own skills. "If you were so hasty with a cure like water from the spring of drowned twins, you might have succeeded only in duplicating yourself with the curse intact!"

            "Ah, so you succeeded in tracking down the treatment to use the Chaunshontsuniichaun to split a cursed individual into separate aspects?" Cologne asked with great interest. "Perhaps you know if the legends about that cure are true."

            "Oh, you mean, will hot water restore the separated halves, thus undoing the cure?" Tofu laughed and rubbed the back of his head. "Well, there are special conditions, since the treatment is simply dissolving salt in the twins water, the two can only be merged in hot saltwater, or separated again by cold saltwater, while normal hot and cold water control the original curse while they are merged. Not really a true cure, but it does make the cure more manageable." Tofu sighed and returned to contemplating the three Ranmas.

            "Actually," Cologne cleared her throat, "I was wondering about the mental aspect of the curse. When the twins were rejoined, the memories of their separate incarnations would pool together, according to legend."

            "Oh, yes," Tofu tapped his lips thoughtfully. "That would be correct."

            "Does any of this have anything to do with us?" Ranma asked.

            "I believe that the general rules for the Chaunshontsuniichaun apply to victims of the Mirror of Broken Souls," Cologne confided. "Should your copies be returned to the mirror, their memories ought to be absorbed by you. In theory, at least. By the same notion, your memories should pass on to them if you are slain by the division. I'm in no hurry to test these theories, however."

            The three nodded in vigorous agreement. A moment later, Tofu sighed.

            "I am sorry, Ranma. At this range I can not tell if you are actually arresting the bleeding or if it just stops at such close range," the doctor leaned back. He had listened to Ranma's plan to use the techniques he had developed to frustrate Miss Hinnako to stop the bleeding, and asked for a demonstration. "Why don't the two of you," he suggested, indicating the copies, "get dressed and take a walk around the block. A little distance might reveal the weakness a bit better." They rushed to comply and soon sprinted out of the room. 

            "Relax, Son-in-law," Cologne directed, "let it bleed so the doctor can find the threads between you."

            Ranma nodded and shook himself to loosen his concentration. He took the opportunity to get dressed while Dr. Tofu quickly found and began to track the link. As the twins were about halfway around the block, he asked Ranma to try stopping the bleeding again. Ranma quickly focused his mind, and willed his chi to anchor itself in him. When the twins returned to the examination room, the doctor looked faintly optimistic. 

            "I can see the energy responding to your effort to conserve your chi. It is not stopping the bleeding, but it is pulling the flow into orbit around the primary channels. With some discipline you might be able to weave a stronger link. The connection between you all tends to fray as you move apart and energy is sucked away from you to bridge the gap." Tofu led them into his office where he began to pick esoteric medical texts off the shelves lining the room. "The three of you have a lot of reading and experimenting to do. You need to develop your sensitivity by an order of magnitude, and you need to learn some techniques to channel chi for healing to develop the correct discipline."

            They took the books with gratitude. 

            "I would recommend that the three of you spend a few hours a day with myself or Cologne working on this, and that you remain close together except to test your progress. If you are as quick to pick this up as you do martial techniques, by the end of the week you should all be able to move freely about Nerima without harm to each other," Tofu diagnosed. 

            "Thanks, Tofu-sensei," they all bowed.

            "No thanks necessary," Tofu smiled. "Just take care of yourselves."

A couple of hours later, Ranma, Cologne and both copies were emerging from the woods at the entrance to Mirror Mansion. It had been a bright, clear day, and the sun had tinged the emerald countryside in gold. The long walk from the station had been relaxing and invigorating. They were completely refreshed from the hour long train ride, and the grueling wait at the Nerima station, by the time they reached their destination. During the journey, Cologne had pressed Ranma for the exact details of both of his encounters with the mirror. With a bit of coaching, she got a very accurate picture of what had happened. In both cases, there had been others present who, though exposed to the mirror, were not duplicated. Neither Akane, Genma nor the man from the mansion itself had looked directly into or physically contacted the mirror. Ranma had done both at the same time in each case. With some basic precautions, she would be able to study the mirror without releasing a copy of herself. 

            One of those precautions now accompanied them at a distance. By sheer coincidence, they had encountered a Shinto shrine and Cologne had persuaded the resident priest to visit the mirror with them, to verify that it was possessed by the ghost. With a grin, he informed them that at least once a year a priest from his temple had been asked to perform this task. He considered it an honor to support this local tradition. He revealed that he was currently employed in the task of recreating the seal that protected innocents from the tragic mirror.

            "Ah, it looks like Tengawa-san already has visitors," the priest said, looking in through the open gates.

            The others turned and saw the stocky, balding man hunched over in conversation with another familiar figure holding a hand drawn map out for the older man to see. There was no mistaking the travel stained bandana, yellow tunic and black leggings, the massive backpack, the furled red, bamboo umbrella, or the utterly lost expression gracing his face. 

            "Ryouga!" the girl cried out, rushing forward to pounce on the lost boy.

            "Oh great. This is just what we needed," Ranma drawled. 

            "What's going on, Son-in-law?"

            "I'm not entirely sure, but from the story I got out of her, Kuno doped her with some kind of love potion that knocked her out. When she woke up, Ryouga was kissing her—I just can't believe that part—and the potion finally kicked in," Ranma shook his head, his eyes on the girl now straddling Ryouga's hips after knocking him to the ground. The force of her impact had sent the backpack and umbrella flying. Strangely, once she had him pinned, she proceeded to just talk to him, rather than go in for the kill.

            "It doesn't look like he's trying that hard to get away," Copy-kun grumbled, puffing up and stalking forward. Ranma reached out a hand to restrain his twin.

            "Hey. Don't. You're provisionally engaged to Akane," Ranma reminded him. "Since you can't have any kind of relationship with her, you better let it go. Think of her as your sister and just be glad she has someone else to think about."

            "That sounds unusually mature coming from you, Son-in-law."

            "Hey, I don't like it, but Ryouga did get me with that koi rod. If he's really attracted to me as a girl, well, better the girl who wants a guy than me. Besides, it might distract him from Akane and Akari."

            "I thought Akari was Ryouga's girlfriend?" the matriarch puzzled.

            "Sort of. She threw herself at him 'cuz he beat her pig. She really loves pigs, and once she discovered Ryouga's curse she decided he's the only man for her. Problem is, Ryouga hates his curse and doesn't really want her. He just likes the attention, same as with Akane."

            "I can see how the relationship might be flawed then. Still, I can hardly believe you would let your girl half pursue him," Cologne pressed.

            "I don't like it, but it's better than her pining for him," Ranma jerked a thumb at Copy-kun. "Especially if he ends up with Akane."

            "True, but if she gets her memory back, would she not react like you to a relationship with a man?"

            "Um, unless she goes to Jusenkyo and jumps in the Nanniichaun, she's stuck as a girl. But, if she is in love with Ryouga, it won't really matter. It didn't when I was in love with him," he confessed quietly. The others, especially the priest, stared at him in shock. 

            "But if it's because of the potion…"

            "I checked some things," Ranma interrupted. "Happosai has some books in his room, and one of them has a description of the Sake of Love. It's not a coercive spell, like the koi rod. It's somethin' that removes inhibitions. Since she has very few inhibitions, it wouldn't take much for her to fall in love."

            "But, how can she fall in love if she hasn't made love with him yet?"

            Everyone was now goggling at Copy-kun. 

            "That's not a prerequisite, child," Cologne drawled, rapping him on the skull with her staff. Her eyes returned to the redhead straddling the boy. From the way she was apparently wrapping the lost boy around her finger, Cologne observed that she would do quite well as an amazon. At the very least, Shampoo could benefit from learning how she was doing it. "Someone go pull those two off each other. We have business to conduct here."

            The two boys wandered over to pry Copy-chan away from Ryouga. 

            "Yo, Ryouga," Ranma greeted his friend-rival. "You're right on time."

            "Ranma? Oh, thank the kami!" Ryouga sighed as he verified the presence of the two boys dragging him to his feet. He glanced back at the girl and shuddered. She smiled at him, beaming pure, concentrated kawaii. The sweet nothings she had been whispering in greeting danced around in his head, and only the dread that it might be Ranma messing with him had kept him from being blown away by the whole experience. In retrospect, the things he would not care to repeat still echoed in his skull and, yes, a girl _had_ just said such wonderful, terrifying things to him… about… with… "Erk!"

            The trio just sighed, for rather different reasons, as Ryouga's eyes rolled back in his head, while blood fountained from his nostrils, and he crashed back to the ground. 

            "Geez! What were you sayin' to him?"

            "I'm sure I don't wanna know! Copy-kun, can you get his gear? We should probably keep ahold of him in case he wants help getting back to Nerima or something," Ranma went over and flipped the lost boy onto his shoulder and turned to look for Cologne. 

            The matriarch had gone over to introduce herself to the master of Mirror Mansion and explain the purpose of their visit. It took her a while to convince the old man that the prize of his collection of mirrors was a dangerous artifact, and correct his assumptions about how and why the mirror could do what it did. When she clarified her interest in determining how the ghost had managed to unlock the powers of the mirror, and seeing if it could be undone, the man finally allowed them to enter the building and examine the unsealed mirror. Because of the danger of confronting the mirror, Cologne and the priest entered alone. The three Ranmas set about waking Ryouga and filling him in on their situation. It was also fun to watch him reacting to the curious affection of Copy-chan. Seeing the pig-boy squirm went a long way toward lifting Ranma out of the cloud of gloom he had been sinking into. 


	14. Shattering Blows

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Fourteen: Shattering Blows

The world was a dark and lonely place. Ryouga Hibiki learned this tragic fact at a tender young age the first time he had gotten lost. The world was so big, and there were so damned many corners. No one seemed to realize just how easy it was to turn one of those corners and somehow end up miles from where he wanted to be. No, they just stared at him and laughed, like he was the butt of some great cosmic joke. It had been terrible when it was just little kids laughing, but the older he became, the more contempt he felt from those who learned of his first curse. Learning to fight had been his way of stopping the laughter, until one cocky kid had laughed at his fighting ability. For too long, laughter had been a promise of mockery. Because of it, he could not have recognized the playfulness of his nemesis. His friend. He never understood that it was respect for his abilities that had singled him out for the torment he faced in Junior High. Thus, Ryouga Hibiki never realized that he had found—oh blessed word!—the thing he longed for most in the boy he invested all his anger and frustration. 

            He did not even realize the boy, Ranma Saotome, had become his beacon. The one wandering destination he could always find if he put his mind to it. The first landmark in the crazed map that was his lonely world. For all his heart cried out for the elusive happiness he dreamed of in the arms of his beloved Akane and Akari, Ranma was his true passion. A maddening enigma now, to be sure, that taunted him and tormented him with two faces. One might wonder at the nature of the attraction, given the peculiar nature of his rival's curse, but long before anything resembling sexual chemistry had entered the picture there had been a kind of magnetism. Anyone but the two in question might notice the similarities, wandering childhoods tainted by neglect and abuse. So, the attraction, then, might be seen in the nature of their personalities. One so naturally cheerful and confidant, the other so burdened with depression and frustration. 

            Jusenkyo had played a cruel trick on both of them, but its warped sense of humor introduced a different chemistry to the boy's lives. Ranma, something of a prankster at heart, simply failed to grasp the impact of his female form and how it subtly changed their masculine rivalry. Ranma was the first "girl" Ryouga had seen or touched in the nude, when they confronted each other in the Tendo furo. Ranma was the first girl who played games with his heart, masquerading as everything from his sister to his fiancée. The same desperate loneliness that caused him to give his heart to Akane had been exploited by Ranma too many times to count. Karma had been balanced a bit when Ryouga hooked Ranma with the koi fishing rod, wrapping Ranma's heart around Ryouga's fingers, but the fallout from that incident had scarred them both. 

            Now, the final blows had come. Ranma, by extension through Copy-chan, had been the first girl to kiss the lost boy. Copy-chan, emerging from the shadow of Ranma at last, had become the first girl he had kissed. It did not matter that it was mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, it was the only time in his life he had ever initiated anything intimate—and saving someone's life was indeed intimate. The immediate horror or realizing that the kiss, when it became a kiss, when he gave himself to it, had been witnessed by both Akane and Akari, had caused him to snap. Once he got over the panic, he was well and truly lost. His mind had rushed off in a million different directions, trying to think of a way to explain the situation to Akane and Akari, to keep them from hating him. But he kept being distracted by the image of her pulling back, eyes brilliant, face flushed, a small smile on her face. A look he had seen only in movies. 

            A look of love. For him.

            And he had run away from her. 

            Ryouga had collected himself and set out, once more, to find the Tendo Dojo. This time, it was not Akane or Ranma he wanted to see. He actually dreaded the idea. No, it was the girl. The girl he had fallen in love with over and over again, and hated for not being real. A girl he had to find in less than a week, or she would disappear again forever. He had traveled through the night, a heavy dread filling his heart as he counted the times he had reached a destination in less than a week. Excluding the times he had found some assistance, the number could be tallied on one hand. Of course, asking directions did not count as assistance. Everyone he ever asked for directions sent him astray. Talking to the elderly gentleman he had confronted at the gates to an isolated mansion, he hoped that this time would be an exception. To his great surprise, the man had recognized the name of the Tendo Dojo at once, confiding that he had traveled there the week before on private business. 

            Ryouga tried to contain his desperate hope as the man studied his hand drawn map and muttered in confusion. The old man gamely asked him to explain the strange landmarks. Ryouga was describing how the strange, ferocious figures on the map represented the spot in the forest where he was always ambushed by headhunters, when he was startled by a familiar voice.

            "Ryouga!

            "Wha…? Oof!" Ryouga had barely turned around when the petite, female form barreled into him. The impact knocked the backpack off his back, sent the umbrella spinning across the manicured yard, and carried him to the ground. Blinking his eyes, he tried to focus on the assailant straddling his hips. "YAAAA! Who!?" he gasped in shock, instantly filled with dread that Ranma had heard of the incident in the park and had come to exact some kind of revenge.

            "It's me, Ryouga-chan! Copy-chan!"

            "C… could you, um, get offa me!?" he blushed as what she was sitting on suddenly began to notice her. 

            "Oh no. This time you're the one who ain't runnin' away! Not after giving me a kiss like that!" she cooed. 

            "That wasn't a kiss! That was CPR!" his eyes bulged in panic.

            "CPR?" she frowned, looking rather cute in her confusion. 

            "You were dead! I was just tryin' to bring you back!"

            "You brought me back from the dead!?" she blinked in surprise. Grinning she slipped her arms around his neck and pressed tight in a smothering hug, her girlish squeal emerging right next to his ear, "That's so romantic!"

            "Erk!" he stiffened in shock as she cuddled up against him. His arms slid over her body, trying to find some way to peel them apart, "Wa.. wait a second. What're you…?" The girl, interpreting his pawing for some form of encouragement, began to lick and nibble at his earlobe before closing her mouth on the sensitive skin of his neck. His arms and legs shot out, stiff and straight, as he wrenched his neck trying to evade the succulent kiss, "Yikes! Waaaah!"

            "You're so shy! That's so cute!" she piped, laughing. She pulled back to look into his eyes and noticed them rolling back into his head. The silly grin was cute, but the lack of attention was vexing. "Hey! Wake up!" she slapped him on the cheek a bit vigorously.

            "Ohgod! You're still here!" he moaned, as the ringing in his skull and the sharp tingling in his cheek roused him from his swoon. From the way he was sweating and staring around madly for some avenue of escape, the girl thought he was trying to escape from a room full of cats!

            "Don't be like that, Ryouga-chan!" her voice caught as she reared back, giving him some breathing room, but remaining firmly straddled over his hips. Her lip trembled as she sucked in a deep breath and a tear formed at the corner of her eye. In a voice gearing up to wail, she cried, "I'm startin' to think you don't like me!"

            "Oh no!" Ryouga immediately began to wave his hands to forestall her. The look on her face was painfully familiar. Ranma had looked like that under the influence of the koi rod when Ryouga tried to dismiss his rival's feelings. It was a look that promised much pain, heavily seasoned with contusions in a rich, red sauce. "Ah, hahahahaha! I like you fine, really!" he tried to assure her at once. "But," he tried to think of some way to calm her down without encouraging her further. He immediately decided not to mention Akane or Akari. He remembered her reaction to his "straying" affections the morning before. Then inspiration struck, and he asked, looking as concerned as possible," Aren't you interested in that other copy?"

            "Ah, well. About that," she looked away, sighing. "I can't do anything with him without hurting Ranma." 

            "Huh?" he boggled, totally confused.

            Copy-chan took a breath and quickly explained Cologne's visit and what she had revealed to the trio. She was doodling on his chest with her index finder as she completed the abridged tale. "So, that's why I can't be with him. But you're here! You're cute and strong and you're not as crazy as Kuno," she beamed again. Leaning very close, her nose almost touching his, she smiled and purred, "Do you wanna make love with me?"

            "Ma… ma… ma… ma…" Ryouga could not even get past the first syllable of the dreaded proposal. The gears in his head locked up as the blood in his system tried to decide which delicate organ to invade and overwhelm.

            "It's not that hard, really," she assured him with a wide grin. "First we flirt, that's this part here," she explained, caressing his cheek. She pressed on enthusiastically, eager to share her itinerary with her new boyfriend, staring off at something only she could see in great anticipation. She began gesturing to enhance her words. "Then we start dating. That's when we can start makin' out, and from there it's really easy to move on to heavy petting!" Ryouga stared up, dreading once more that this was really Ranma messing with his head. As anger began to boil up inside him, he managed to stave off the urge to pass out. Unfortunately, it was a meager defense against the things she was saying! "Once all of that turns into foreplay we can try sex!" She paused to close her eyes in bliss. In a more normal voice, she confided, "I'm really looking forward to that!" She looked down to see his, expected, excitement at her plans and frowned, eyes going half lidded. "Oh. Are you passing out again? Ew. You're bleeding all over the place." She reached out and pinched his nostrils to stop the flow of blood.

            "Ite!" the sudden assault on his nose roused him once more.

            "Yo, Ryouga," a too familiar voice intruded. "You're right on time."

            "Ranma? Oh, thank the kami!" Rouga had whipped his head around to see his rival, shadowed by his duplicate. With a rattling sigh, he assured himself that it had not, after all, been one of his rival's sick jokes. The very idea of a boy saying such things to him was mortifying. Turning a smile back on Copy-chan he relaxed. Confident in the confirmation that such startling words had come from a real girl, the sense of horror evaporated. That left him with the sudden realization that such startling words had come from a real girl. Finally, he received the full impact of what Copy-chan had been saying. In his own defense, he argued quite articulately, "Erk!" and then mercifully passed out.

            "Geez! What were you sayin' to him?"

            "I'm sure I don't wanna know! Copy-kun, can you get his gear? We should probably keep ahold of him in case he wants help getting back to Nerima or something." Ranma went over and flipped the lost boy onto his shoulder and turned to look for Cologne. 

            The matriarch had gone over to speak with the master of Mirror Mansion. The two talked for some time before the man finally agreed to let them into the building to examine the unsealed mirror. Cologne stopped Ranma as he moved to follow her in and softly deterred him. Because of the danger of confronting the mirror, Cologne and the priest entered alone. The three Ranmas set about waking Ryouga. 

            "Aren't we goin' in too?" Copy-chan asked, turning to Ranma.

            "Nah, Cologne wants to make sure it's safe first." 

            "Don't you two make a cute couple," Copy-kun glared.

            "Oh, don't be jealous!" Copy-chan huffed.  

            "Couple!? Us!?" Ryouga interrupted, before Copy-chan could continue.

            "Relax, Ryouga." Ranma reached out and put a hand on his rival's shoulder. With a knowing grin, he shook him a little, "We already know about you jumpin' her in the park. Stop pretending to be so shy! Really, I didn't know you had it in you!"

            "It's not like that! She was dying!" the lost boy protested.

            "He saved my life! It's so romantic!" the girl clasped her hands together and beamed. She leaned her shoulder against Ryouga's and stared up at him.

            "Really? Gee, thanks, Ryouga! You saved us all, then!" Ranma offered a genuine, thankful smile as he clapped the boy on the shoulder.

            "Huh?" Ryouga stared at him in confusion, and once more the group informed him of the fatal flaw of the Mirror of Broke Souls. This time, the information seemed to penetrate, as he gaped in disbelief, "You're kidding? If one of you dies you all die?"

            "Until we work out a way to fix the bleeding," Ranma nodded. 

            "But you can help protect me until we do!" Copy-chan proposed.

            "Uh. Sure. I guess,"  Ryouga looked down at her, remembering the burst of fear when he thought she was dead. He rubbed the back of his head and tried to get the idea of defending her life to really sink in. That was a little hard with Copy-kun glaring daggers at him and growling under his breath. 

            "Cool it lover boy," Ranma reached over and tugged on Copy-kun's pig-tail. When the boy turned the glare on him, he leaned in close and reminded him that his other half was no longer his main concern. "Remember Akane? Hell, if you become me, you'll have a handful of girls to deal with even if you don't end up with Akane." 

            "What?" Copy-kun gasped. Ranma quickly explained the fiancée situation to his double, elaborating a little on the cause of all of them. The boy's expression became more and more outraged as Ranma detailed the many ways he had been sold off for food, fast cash or a quick bail out as the result of Genma's greed. He was positively steaming at the conclusion, "I'm gonna kill that old man!"

            Before anyone could tell him to get in line, they were interrupted.

            "Son-in-law, it is safe for everyone to enter," Cologne announced, hopping out through the front door. As they collected themselves and filed into the foyer, she tapped each one and issued specific warnings, starting with Ranma, "You will be safe. Ryouga, be sure not to look directly into the mirror or touch it. You two, I need to talk to alone." Ranma and Ryouga continued inside while the twins paused to confront Cologne.

            "What is it?" they asked.

            "Without a seal on the mirror, you two should be able to pass in and out of the mirror at will. This should allow us to test some things," she informed them. They nodded, in slight confusion, and entered. The matriarch followed. When Cologne had first gone in, she had confronted the mirror with a number of suspicions. She quickly shared these with the four teenagers. "It is safe to say that this is the Mirror of Broken Souls, and thus, you two are both Ranma," she declared, pointing to the copies. 

            She went on to explain how, despite the fact that two copies of Ranma had been released under the influence of the ghost, she had concluded that the ghost herself must still be trapped in the mirror. However she might have interfered with the copies, there would be no need for a second to emerge if the ghost had truly possessed the first. From the story of how the woman had inexplicably sickened and died, she also concluded that she had managed to unlock the mirror's power prior to her death. "She no doubt twinned herself and separated so that one could pursue her dream of finding a lover, while the other remained in her home to maintain appearances. I believe that the ghost will have to be exorcised as the first step in restoring the memory of Ranma to the twins." 

            This statement explained the preparations the priest had been making when they entered. Cologne had already conferred with him and convinced the priest to attempt an exorcism. He was just completing a quick circuit of the entry hall, affixing warding seals to protect and consecrate the immediate area. Half expecting the old man to be another crackpot, like the ones he had dealt with in the past, Ranma commented on his professionalism as he came to rejoin them.

            "Oh," he laughed, "In my youth is was something of a Ghost Chaser. I discovered I could not really compete with some of the ladies in that profession and returned to the shrine when the master passed on." 

            "Okay," Ranma rubbed the back of his head. "So, now what?"

            The old man produced a number of artifacts and smiled. "Well, after discussing this with Elder Cologne, the two reflections need to enter the mirror." Cologne had explained the boy's curse, confirming for the priest the validity of the fabled Jusenkyo. "Once they are inside, I'll light the tapers and begin the ritual to call the ghost from them and the mirror," he explained, handing Ranma, Ryouga and Cologne tall, thick candles.

            "I thought we established that the ghost wasn't possessin' them?"

            "That is true, Son-in-law," Cologne intercepted. "However, she has managed to use the mirror to extend her influence to them. Think of them as having been bespelled or entranced. I am concerned that they would remain under her spell if they were in the real world while she was brought forth and banished."

            "Oh. Well, I guess we should take your advice," he shrugged. Turing to his twins he studied them, "Are you two ready to go back in?"

            They nodded and Ranma followed them over to the mirror. To their shock, none of them seemed to cast a reflection in the tall glass. 

            "This is kinda weird," Copy-chan muttered, placing her hand on the glass. She frowned as she applied pressure, but the glass would not admit her. "That's odd. It won't let me in!"

            "What do you mean?" Copy-kun, standing next to her, reached out and gaped as the glass resisted his own intrusion. "Hey, Cologne! I thought you said we'd be able to pass through this at will?" He was straining to push the glass with both hands, throwing the challenge over his shoulder, when Ranma reached out to touch the glass himself. With a startled cry, Copy-kun plunged through the mirror as if it was a pool of water.

            "Apparently, the mirror's powers have been limited. The original and the reflection have to be in contact with the mirror's surface to bypass the original seal," she observed thoughtfully. The boy on the other side of the glass picked himself up and now studied them all through the glass. It looked like he was saying something, but the glass muted it. In sudden shock, the matriarch realized that Ranma's lips were moving in synch, muttering to himself in shock.

            "What is that, Son-in-law?"

            Ranma was staring at his reflection in shock as the memories of the past two days as Copy-kun spilled through his mind. "I… I can remember it all now!" he stammered, in response to the question. "I can remember being me. I can remember not being able to remember… I can remember…" The boy stiffened in shock as the string of confrontations with himself reached the most intimate ordeals. He let out a howl of pain as his mind tried to deal with what he had done and the feelings experienced on both sides. The priest, looking on in alarm, reached into his robe and before anyone could stop him, splashed the boy with purified water.

            "Demon! Begone!" the priest shouted, to activate the enchantment in the water. To his shock, the boy turned into a girl, causing Copy-chan, who was still leaning against the glass, to spill through the surface with a squawk of surprise. The others noticed that the boy's reflection had simply vanished as the curse was activated. Ranma-chan spasmed, as her mind was assaulted with a third perspective, breaking contact with the mirror and falling to the ground slightly out of phase with her reflection.

            "Wha… what just happened?" Ryouga asked in alarm.

            "Oh dear," the priest moaned. "I forgot about the curse."

            "What happened to Copy-kun?" Ryouga demanded, automatically rushing to Ranma-chan's side and pulling her into his arms. 

            "It looks like the mirror can only hold one reflection at a time," Cologne concluded, grabbing the two teens and urging them to their feet. "Quickly, we need to perform the exorcism. That girl is trapped in the edge of the spirit world in a physical form. We have no time to waste!"

            Copy-chan was pressed up against the glass, banging against it for release, as Ryouga dragged Ranma-chan to her feet. Copy-chan's cries were coming from Ranma-chan's lips, "Lemme out! Lemme out! There's somethin' in here! Yaaaaaaaaah!!!"

            "Hush, child!" Cologne reached out and tapped a spot above the Ranma-chan's navel. A strange calm overtook the cursed martial artist and her reflection. "If you panic, you will only draw more attention to yourself."

            "Elder, I am ready to begin," the priest announced, after lighting the candles the four of them carried. He turned to Ranma, "Since you have a connection through the mirror, I will need to use you as a conduit to contact the spirit." He gestured to the shadows and the old man came forward. "As the lady's nephew, it would be best if you called out to her," the priest directed the master of the mansion.

            "I will do so," the old man followed the priest's gestures to come and stand facing both Ranma and the mirror. Clearing his throat, he roughly called out to his long departed aunt, as he had been instructed. "Mihoshi Tengawa, I entreat you, come forth and speak!"

            For a while, nothing happened. The only sound was the low chanting of the priest. Just as Ranma was about to start complaining, a chill went through her and she sagged. For a moment, there was just dizziness, and then Ranma found herself looking out through the mirror at the four people ringing her body. A voice echoed all around her, and she could see her vacant body suddenly animated by an alien spirit. "Oh, Shiro! Is that really you?"

            Ranma strained, but the old man's reply did not penetrate the glass. There was an instant of panic, as she feared the ghost might take over her body and leave her behind in the mirror! "Hey! That's my body! You get out of there!"

            "Dear, Shiro, I have missed you as well," the voice continued, oblivious to her demands. "I was so very foolish. I should have known it was too good to be true." Ranma calmed herself, distracted from the pooling of her reflections' memories by the one sided conversation with the dead noble woman. Apparently, Cologne had guessed right, as the ghost told her story of having discovered a way to twin herself with the mirror, and the struggle she had faced when tempted to escape the prison of her formal life. By the time she had realized that the division was killing her, her other half was too weak to return to the mirror. Upon their death, they had been reunited in spirit within the mirror, and in their anger ignored the silent call of heaven. She had tried to use the mirror to cheat death, but her efforts had done nothing but warp the reflections of those who stumbled into the open trap she had left behind. "I am tired of it," she finally admitted. "I have ruined many lives in my desperation to fulfill my own dream. I just did not know how to move on."

            There was a long pause as the priest came forward on the other side of the glass and spoke to her. At the end, the ghost said one word, "Yes." Suddenly, Ranma found herself back in her own body in the small ritual circle. 

            "That was creepy! I was stuck in there!"

            "I am sorry, young one, but it is over now. The spirit has gone," the priest declared, putting a hand on her shoulder.

            "You mean she didn't fight you or anything?" Ranma-chan was shocked. From the looks on everyone's faces, they were all surprised at how easily the ceremony succeeded. After generations of frustration, the ghost had proved eager to quit the mortal plane and seek fulfillment in the next life. "That's a relief!" Ranma sighed, collecting herself and turning to head outside. She was surprised when Ryouga reached out and whipped her around. "Hey! What do you think you're doin'?" Ranma-chan barked.

            "Are you just going to leave her trapped in there?" the lost boy demanded, pointing to the image of Copy-chan slumped against the inside of the glass, staring out in shock and dejection. 

            Ranma-chan stared at her in surprise. "I don't get it."

            "What is that, Son-in-law?"

            "She's inside of me now," Ranma declared. "What is she still doing in there?" It was true, too. He could close his eyes and feel her, a part of himself walled away in a corner of his mind. If he concentrated hard enough, he could even sense the male half submerged even deeper. All of their memories were hers now, but somehow both of them still existed.

            "I would think she can not get out unless you open the mirror for her again," Cologne drawled with an amused snort.

            "But, why wasn't she absorbed along with all the memories?" Ranma-chan demanded, walking back up to the mirror. Copy-chan pulled herself together and rose to her feet, peering out hopefully.

            "Until the mirror is properly sealed again, she remains a unique expression of you, Son-in-law. She has her own will, and in the spirit realm that is enough for her to endure on her own." Either that, Cologne thought, or she has something to cling to in his psyche that makes her able to hold her own in his mind. Something the boy would not embrace. Cologne studied the girl in the mirror with growing hope. "It would be cruel to leave them in there for the time needed to repair the seal. It might be dangerous as well, since she is a physical manifestation in a spiritual realm."

            "Oh, right!" Ranma remembered Cologne mentioning that earlier. She reached out to her reflection, and pressed her palm against that of Copy-chan. The glass flowed out from between their hands, allowing Copy-chan to burst free of the mirror. She flopped to the ground, gasping in relief. Her mind had opened up to embrace Ranma's life, and as she had feared, she was struggling now with the simple fact that she was permanently, perfectly, one hundred percent female. The eight or nine days she had spent entirely as a girl were not much to balance the overbearing masculinity pounded into her by her father. Even so, the permanent curse, the events that had undermined her manhood, the feelings she had for Ryouga—of all people—were not as bad as being trapped behind the glass. She reveled in her freedom for several breaths, until familiar hands moved to help her to her feet. 

            "Don't touch me!" she turned her troubled eyes to meet Ryouga's, silently pleading for space. "Please… just… give me some… time. I need to figure out who I am," she looked down and away, to avoid the sight of Ryouga's heart shattering. 

            Ranma stared at her in shock and dread. Crouching down next to her, Ranma-chan put her arm over her shoulder and spoke in a soft voice. "I am sorry. I never considered what it would be like to remember this suddenly. I remember you too, now. Just remember, there's still the nanniichaun, you don't have to be like this forever if you don't want to."

            She laughed, "Oh, it's just a little worse. I've been through this before with the Musk. I'm just glad that didn't happen at the same time as the koi rod." She allowed her other self to help her to her feet. She didn't have to say anything to know what was on Ranma's mind. This had been shocking enough. What they had to do next would be even more painful. Turning to the master of the estate, they asked in unison, "Could we get some hot water?"

            The old man bowed and marched away to grant their request. He felt he owed a lot more to this cursed stranger who had finally brought his family's tragedy to an end. He would be happy to do far more than produce a kettle of hot water!

            "As soon as he gets back, I'll let the other one out," Ranma announced. "After that, we're going home. We don't really want to have to deal with anyone when he gets out," she added, giving Cologne a meaningful look. Seeing Ryouga studying the mirror with a strange look, she added, "Don't even think about it Ryouga. You'd be cured, but you would also spend the rest of your life cursed. Do you want to be a pig forever?"

            The lost boy turned to him and sighed, "There's still the nanniichaun. The reverse of this curse would still be better."

            "Then get some nanniichaun water first. Don't make a mistake with this thing!" Copy-chan grabbed him by the front of his shirt. She pulled him close, "Trust me, you won't like the feeling of being permanently cursed."

            "Is that what… You're really Ranma now, aren't you?"

            "I am sorry Ryouga," she looked down. "I meant everything at the time. I just don't know if I can live with it now."

            "It probably would never have worked anyway," Ryouga sighed, turning away to collect his things. "Besides, I still haven't decided between Akane and Akari. You would have killed me over that in a week. Even without the memories, you are too much like him."

            While the lost boy wandered outside, the old man returned with a steaming kettle. The priest, at Cologne's urging, went out to keep an eye on the lost boy, offering a sympathetic ear. That was enough to detain Ryouga as Ranma doused himself and returned to the mirror to confront his other reflection. Even before raising a hand to the glass, the other boy's head was bowed in anguish. He knew, as he took Ranma's hand and pushed through the surface, what his existence would do to his other selves. The long sought cure, finally realized for him, had a terrible price. All he wanted to do was laugh and celebrate, shout to the world that he was finally a man-among-men. Even in the strained silence, as he confronted the other two, the words could be heard. There was no reason not to say them. 

            "Well. I'm never gonna be a girl again."

            "Congratulations, Ranma," the pair said to him.

            Cologne gazed upon the three and wondered if the world could survive the three of them expressing their misery in a combined, perfect shishihokodan. At times like this, it was dreadful to know what Ranma was capable of. 


	15. I Am He as You Are Me or He Is She and W...

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Fifteen: I Am He as You Are Me or He Is She and We Are All Together

The first indication the morose trio had of impending rain was the sudden burst of motion from Ryouga. Responding to the first acrid tang of moisture on the wind, Ryouga reached over his shoulder and pulled his umbrella free of the restraints binding it to the top of his backpack. The force of the draw, as he whipped it around in an arc with his left hand, snapped it open. Ranma, currently in triplicate, snapped into reflexive guard positions and scanned the forest bordering the road, instantly ready if Ryouga happened to be preparing for battle. The umbrella spun in the lost boy's grip as he jerked it upright just in time to intercept the first fat drops aiming at his head. Cologne, who happened to have been riding atop the umbrella laden pack at the start of this maneuver, had been launched at a nearby tree, bounced from the trunk down to the path and back up onto the backpack just in time to perch in its shadow, safe from the deluge that followed. Instinctively, all three Ranmas hunched a bit and grabbed at their clothing, expecting their pants to begin sliding down after the transformation, though this reflex was only necessary for one of them.

            The boy who had just become a girl automatically gathered her pants and tightened her belt around her narrow waist. The girl who had not changed simply confirmed that her oversized outfit was properly secured. Both of them were glaring at the boy who paused in the midst of checking himself, and began chuckling at the unnecessary reflex. When he smiled and leaned back to welcome the rain on his face, the two girls swallowed a growl and suddenly bounded off down the road in great, land devouring leaps. Spurred on by identical stabs of pain, they were almost blind to each other, until each noticed who was pacing her so effortlessly. 

            Turning to each other with equal looks of shock, they dropped out of their frenetic pace and lurched to a walk about a quarter of a mile ahead of the others. For a moment, they found themselves unable to speak, for the simple reason that the moment had put them into synch. They both opened their mouths to speak at the same time, and hesitated, biting their lips to gesture for the other to speak. For a moment, they mirrored each other, studying each other's face, reading their inner thoughts and feelings in the other's expressions. At the same time, they looked the other in the eye and began chuckling.

            "Okay," they said together, "this is really weird!"

            Sharing a look of surprise, they each took a step back and pointed, "Hey, how are you doin' that?" They frowned at each other, then started laughing. Even their laughter, interspersed with gasps for air, seemed to synch up, causing them to laugh even harder, until they fell forward into each other and slumped to their knees feeling light headed. 

            When they regained their breath, they leaned back on their heels and studied each other again. "Do you… uh… are you thinkin'… you are!" they both  gaped as their thoughts sped down the same track faster then they could even put them into words. "But, why?" they both demanded, challenging some unspoken statement. "Right, so… Damn, this is confusing," they interrupted themselves. At the same time they impulsively reached out to touch each other's faces. With a start, they realized the reflection was not mirror perfect, they each had their right hand cupped to the other's left cheek. Their thumbs traced over a faint, hairline scar on the other's cheek in thought. 

            "It's not a mirror image. This would be on the other cheek if it was," they both murmured. "I didn't notice that before…" Their hands dropped to rest on top of their thighs. They looked at each other, letting their thoughts progress a bit further. "Okay, so… we are the same person. I guess it makes sense that we'd think and act the same," they pointed out. "Why wasn't it like this from the start? What brought this on?"

            They looked inward trying to determine when the synchronicity had started. They remembered the moment when the copies minds had been joined to Ranma's by the mirror. When the copies… no, the reflections, had come back out of the mirror, they had been the same person in three different situations. They had each taken a unique perspective on the situation because of how they were in relation to the curse. For all they might think and act the same, the different circumstances they were in required them to think on different angles. "Somehow, we jumped onto the same track," they mused aloud. "When it started raining, when I watched him… Of course. How could I still be a girl and see that without getting upset?" they noted painfully, looking down. 

            "Okay, so, how do we stop it?" they asked a moment later. Once asked, it seemed obvious enough. The only thing that kept them from actually being the same person was being in different places. Or, more accurately, different states or situations. The most significant difference being that one of them was permanently a girl. Looking up, they both said, "Ranko…"

            / "…I have to start thinking of myself as Ranko."

            \ "…you have to start thinking of yourself as Ranko."

            Though they had spoken at the same time, the difference was instantly apparent. "Well, that seems to work," they echoed. "Damn. That's not enough." They frowned at each other. Still, that was a good place to begin. Since Ranko was entirely a girl, they could use that to establish precedence for speaking. By Japanese tradition, usually the male took precedence. 

            / "I'm only a part-time guy, so I guess it's him, then me, then you."

            \ "You're only a part time guy, so I guess it's him, then you, then me."

            They laughed together for a bit. Squeezing tears of mirth from their eyes, they muttered, "Oh, this is wild. Akane'd just freak out if she heard us!" More laughter ensued. "Okay, so it's a little harder to do than to say," they admitted together. Concentrating, one girl raised an eyebrow at the other, who nodded. Taking a deep breath, the girl with the active curse rose to her feet.

            "Good, it works with actions," she said.

            The other girl got to her feet, "I was just about to say that…"

            "I know. I suppose it's a good thing…" she cut herself off.

            "I was thinking that too. I'm not happy about being stuck as a girl, but…" she shrugged. "You're right, if not for that we would have been stuck like that for a while."

            "It's…"

            "Please, don't say it," Ranko interrupted. "I know it's not as bad as before. I just… for me it isn't a choice. I'm glad I don't have that contract hanging over my head, but I still don't feel like jumping into a dress and chasing Ryouga!"

            "At least that never happened when I was in my right mind," Ranma-chan sighed. Taking a deep breath and seeing the rest of their party closing on them, she focused on Ryouga. "I'm glad it didn't go too far, either. I feel bad enough as it is."

            Ranko nodded, her eyes focused on the lost boy as well. "I think I am going to miss Copy-chan. It was a lot simpler for her," she sighed. Intellectually, she knew that she had been Copy-chan, but with all of Ranma's memories, there was only enough of that innocent girl left to keep her from screaming against her fate. 

            "It's also a lot more complicated because of her."

            "I didn't think you'd admit that," Ranko looked at her twin.

            Ranma-chan's eyes traveled over to the other boy. "Yeah, well, because of him, it's even more complicated. Now that he remembers me…" she cut herself off and swallowed. "Now that he is Ranma, all I have is a curse, and a whole lot of uncomfortable questions to answer. I'm just glad he's not Copy-kun."

            "Ah, yeah," Ranko gulped, picking up on Ranma-chan's train of thought. "That isn't likely to happen again, but he'll still have the same effect on you." The approaching figures were staring back at them curiously, but before they came into ear shot, Ranko quickly added, "I know you had already decided we would take over as Ranma and Ranko. I know you feel like there isn't much left for you, hell, I have no idea what we'll even call you now…" She paused. Ranma's memories had made two things very clear. On a physical level, the curse made it far easier for her twin to be female. Cold water was much more common, and it would be easier to make the curse permanent than to cure it. On a mental level, it was far easier for her twin, for any of them, to be male. Sighing, she completed her warning, "Don't chose what is easiest. You have all the options, so think about what you want and fight for it, Ranma."

            The other girl laughed somewhat eerily. "Even if it means fighting myself?" she asked pointedly. The others had finally caught up to them and looked between the girls curiously. The conclusion of their conversation was cryptic enough, but none of them wanted to probe. "It's about time you slow pokes caught up."

            "Ah, impetuous youth," Cologne sighed.

            As the twin girls fell into step with the others, they quickly described what had happened to them when they ran off. In the process of explaining their synchronization, they repeatedly fell into it, subjecting the others to the eerie stereo effect. They also explained their solution, distinguishing Ranma and Ranko and establishing their precedence in moments of confusion. Cologne noted that she had expected them to experience moments of synchronicity. She warned Ranma and Ranko that even with differing forms, they might experience it, so it was good they had come up with a system for all three to deal with it. The only problem, naturally, was what to call the original Ranma. 

            "Geez, it was bad enough I had to come up with Ranko," the cursed girl sighed. "No offense," she turned to the girl who now bore that name.

            "None taken. I understand perfectly," she assured, glaring at Ranma.

            "How about, 'Saotome'?" Ranma asked Ranma-chan.

            "Nah, I'd think someone was talking about Pop. Yeah," she cut off the protest that she knew was coming, "I know it's common to just go by a family name, but that won't distinguish me from either of you." She walked between her twins in thoughtful silence for a while. Because of her father, this was unavoidable. The best 'son' had to be Ranma, for too many reasons. She had assumed other names and guises, usually to mess with Ryouga. The name Ranko had been invented to cover for the slip she had made during her mother's first visit, when she almost used her real name. For the same reason she could not be Ranma, she could not be Ranko. Not unless she intended to be a girl for the rest of her life. There was no point for her to fight for either identity. 

            Except that if she did not, she feared she would lose any sense of identity she had left. The very idea left her feeling uncentered, dissipated. She studied her feelings. She would have thought that not being Ranma would be the most shattering blow. It had certainly hurt to pose as Akane's cousin. Ranko was pure fiction, yet now the identity seemed to hold as much substance as that of Ranma. Why was that? She stopped, scrunching her face to concentrate on the elusive impressions inside her. There was something, her instincts were whispering it tauntingly. She turned around and opened her eyes. She found herself facing Ranma. She looked up into his face, ignoring his startled and confused expression.

            Ranko narrowed her eyes and walked up behind her. Feeling the girl closing, Ranma-chan turned and held out her arms. Her hand caught Ranko on the shoulder, while the other pressed against Ranma's chest. In that position, the thread connecting them to each other was eclipsed by her body, which suddenly hummed like a power line. Cologne hopped down from Ryouga's pack and perched on her staff in front of the cursed girl. 

            "What are you doing, Son-in… Ranma-chan?"

            Ranma-chan looked at the Amazon, but she couldn't speak. It was like her thoughts were being sucked off in different directions. Some seemed to speed down her left arm into Ranma, while others were channeled into Ranko. The questions that always lurked in the back of her mind spilled away until there were only one or two questions present in her mind. "Who is Ranko?" she asked under her breath, voicing the first question. 

            "I thought we had already established this," Cologne chided, pointing to the girl on Ranma-chan's right, off-handedly. She frowned as the girl-boy looked into her eyes and shook her head, dismissing her input. Cologne narrowed her eyes and studied the flow of chi in this strange circuit. 

            Ranma-chan was focusing on the thoughts trying to form in her mind. She felt strangely empty, yet focused. If her father had ever spared serious effort on meditation techniques, she would recognize the state she was in. She might even realize that it was a state her ancestors had identified and given a name. Shibumi. A quality of being without the angst of becoming. In that state, frustrated by the distraction of a question she should have known the answer to, she finally realized there had been an answer there, long before the question could be asked. Her head turned to stare in Ranko's direction. Her mouth fell open, as she realized too late what she had done.

            Everyone was looking at her with some concern now. 

            Ranma-chan's hand recoiled from Ranko's shoulder. As the contact broke, a tremendous force threw the girl away from her twin. While Ryouga rushed over to try and intercept the flying girl, Ranma-chan turned entirely to Ranma, pressing herself tight against him, her arms going around him as if he was the only thing that could keep her tied to the Earth. She deliberately tried to provoke the strange polarity he caused, and it confirmed her suspicion. In that moment, she allowed herself to be the girl she had become to protect the boy she had been. A girl who had grown in secret, in shame and in guilt through the little indulgences sponsored by her relationship with Nodoka. A girl she had denied. A girl she could never be. 

            With shaking limbs, she pried herself away from the trembling and blushing boy. For a moment, he had felt the ascent of a female persona in his cursed incarnation. He had also reflected on the awkward and dangerous intimacies of the previous day, and their painful consequences. Unable to understand what had overcome Ranma-chan, the only safe course seemed to be having no reaction at all. He just gaped as she staggered to the side of the road and collapsed into a heap, tears streaming out between tight eyelids. They were almost masked by the rain sheeting over her face. Cologne, after a glance at Ranma, standing stiff with shock and fear, hopped over to Ranma-chan and stood beside her.

            "What is it child? What have you seen that is so disturbing?"

            Ranma-chan tried to look at the amazon, but her eyes could not focus through the tears. Wiping the back of her hand across her lids, she sucked in a breath, "I'm such an idiot! I didn't even see it!"

            "See what?"

            "I was too stinkin' proud," the girl sobbed on, unable to explain her revelation. She pulled her legs in—planting the soles of her feet—spread wide enough for her elbows to rest on her kneecaps, so she could bury her face in her forearms. "So stuck on all that man-among-men crap, I never saw it," she muttered to herself cryptically. 

            Cologne carefully composed her face and took a deep breath. "Are you saying what I think you are saying?" she dared to ask.

            Ranma-chan looked up at her and blinked. "Yeah. Sure. Might as well let you rub it in, now that it's too late," she groused, looking away. Rubbing the beads of rain and tears from her face, she sighed and decided to spell it out. "I never wanted to be a girl. I figured, hell, I'm a guy, I can't be a girl. Copy-kun was right though. When I was a girl, I refused to admit it. An' I'm not talkin' about the curse. A different body don't make you a girl. Wearing dresses and eatin' ice cream and getting kissed by a guy don't make you a girl. It's somethin' inside, somethin' that grows with experience, and before you know it, you are a girl cuz you _understand,_" she said softly. 

            Ranko, who had come running back with Ryouga, had caught most of this speech. She stared down at her twin and gasped, "What the hell are you sayin'!?" She reached down and pulled the other girl up to her feet and shook her, "You can't tell me I'm a girl! I don't understand anything! I don't know the first thing about being a girl! You can't go tellin' me what I am!"

            Ranma-chan managed to break the other girl's grip and staggered back. "You're too scared to see it. I didn't even get it until I wondered why I…" she stopped and looked away.

            "What!? Tell me!" the other girl raged.

            "Why would it bother me to give up being Ranko? I mean, like it bothers me to give up being Ranma?" Ranma-chan demanded. 

            "It's just a stupid name!? How the hell should I know!"

            "Because it's not," she retorted. "It's an identity."

            Cologne quirked an eyebrow at this, while the others rubbed their heads in confusion or fumed in anger. "Perhaps you should explain that, child."

            Ranma-chan pointed at Ranma, "Ranma is not just a name! It's my identity. It's who I am as a man!" Her hand came around to point at Ranko. "Just like Ranko is who I am as a girl. Who I'd be as a woman. If I let go of both, I am neither!"

            Ranko could not reply. She just gaped in astonishment. 

            "When did this happen?" Ranma asked, utterly perplexed. 

            Ranma-chan turned back on him and began shouting, "It happened when Akane asked if I wanted to be her friend! It happened when Mikado kissed me! It happened when I told Mom I was Akane's cousin, and when Mom told me I'd make a good wife one day, and when we went shopping for bras! It happened when I was engaged to Picolet Chardin! It happened a little every day, no matter how hard I fought it!"

            "Are you saying you want to be a girl?" Ryouga asked in a small voice.

            She turned on him and took a deep breath. "Oh yeah. It happened when I was in love with you! Do I want to be a girl? It didn't even occur to me there was a choice until now! It's not my choice now. It's hers!" She turned to Ranko. With an effort she calmed herself and approached the other girl. "And, it is a choice. If you can let go of being Ranma, if you can figure out what it really means to be Ranko, you can be a girl."

            "Why do you feel you do not have this choice?" Cologne asked gently.

            Ranma-chan turned to her and shrugged. "I'm not sure I can explain it. I mean, sure, I suppose I could be Ranko, because that's just a way of being me. I'd remain centered and maybe I wouldn't just evaporate into thin air."

            "Is that what you are afraid of? Is that what brought on this whole scene?" the matriarch asked. There was something in her eyes that disturbed Ranma-chan. She could not imagine what was on the old woman's mind, but there seemed no reason to deny it. She nodded. "Interesting. So, you feel that relinquishing your identity, as a man or as a woman, would leave you vulnerable to the mirror's curse?"

            "That's about it. Don't ask me to explain it, I just get this strong feeling that I'd fly apart if I tried to pretend to be someone else."

            Cologne narrowed her eyes shrewdly. "I see. Then perhaps it would be best to endure a little confusion about who is who, precisely. Unless you can think of some other aspect of your identity you might be able to cling to? Something unique to you?"

            Ranma-chan laughed harshly, "Well, not hard to see what's unique! I'm half and half. Maybe you should call me Nibunnoichi!"

            "Perhaps if it becomes necessary," the old woman grinned. "However, we're not getting home any faster standing on the road and quibbling amongst ourselves. I for one would like to get out of this rain and into something warm and dry!" she announced, eyeing the perch she had abandoned on Ryouga's shoulder. She could hardly return to it now without turning him into a pig. Ranma offered her a perch on his shoulder. Ryouga followed those two as Ranma set off once more for the train station. Ranko lingered behind, seeing her twin idling. 

            "Are you coming?" she asked.

            "Yeah," Ranma-chan sighed and looked at Ranko. There was still some irritation on her face. "You did tell me to fight," Ranma-chan reminded her. 

            "I didn't say, 'Have a psychotic episode'!" she retorted. As the two of them began walking, trailing the others at a distance, Ranko spoke up again, "So. You gonna explain this girl-identity thing? I mean, what the hell brought that on?"

            Ranma-chan shrugged. "I guess Copy-kun and Copy-chan were right. When I was caught between you two, it was sort of like I stepped outside of myself and finally saw what was always right there." As they walked, she tried to explain what she had been thinking and feeling, when she paused to think of some name to go by. As she related the details, she remembered the other question that had surfaced in the strange calm. She had focused all her attention on "Who is Ranko?" and ignored the deeper question, "Who am I?" Frowning in thought, during a lull in the conversation, she pondered that one. For some reason, her mind flashed to a scene at once familiar and unfamiliar. A memory of herself at Jusenkyo, surrounded by strangers who bound her and threw her into one of the springs. The scene repeated a few times and then froze as her body hung in the air over the water's surface, a man's voice echoing in her ears. "Goodbye, Fa Shen." Blinking, she focused on the horizon. That scene did not fit into her life. Perhaps it was a dream? She shrugged. The rain suddenly picked up again, and she shoved her thoughts aside to grumble about being wet and cold. 

The edge of the storm finally slid over Nerima, announcing its presence by tapping insanely against the windows of Furinkan High School. The sudden explosion of fluid chatter drowned out the teacher's voice and drew the attention of Akane and Ukyo. They automatically looked at Ranma's empty desk, and thus in each other's direction. Meeting each other's eyes, they nodded, sharing the same concern for one martial artist. It was strange in a way that rain was no longer part of the background of their lives. Thanks to Ranma, and other cursed individuals, the rain was just a mask for the strange, silent and capricious silhouette that moved randomly across the stage turning the lives of the "characters" on end. Who could witness an instant girl, or cat, or duck, or yeti-riding-bull-carrying-crane-and-eel appearing in their midst, and not wonder what it would do to their own lives to have everything familiar about themselves melt away in a handful of water. 

            Akane sighed and looked back at her work. She had talked to Ukyo between classes and at lunch, explaining what they had all learned from Cologne. The okonomiyaki chef had listened to the news that Genma had proposed exploiting the mirror's curse to present Copy-kun as Ranma, both to Nodoka, as her son, and to Akane, as her fiancé. Ukyo was even more startled to hear about the strange endorsement Genma had made for Ranma to consider being a girl, the daughter Nodoka had always wanted. "But as Ranma pointed out, Copy-chan makes a better choice for that, for the same reason Copy-kun makes a better Ranma," Akane had confided. 

            "Still, I can't believe Ranma's old man would even suggest that!"

            Akane shrugged. "Genma is capable of suggesting anything, as long as the outcome is to his benefit. When Ranma took over the engagement to Picolet, to learn combat dining, the old fool was tempted to let Ranma marry the creep just so he could stuff his fat face with French cuisine for the rest of his life!" Akane was still a bit bitter about that. Ranma had come close to starving to death trying to master the Parlay du Foie Gras, and perhaps even closer to losing his mind under the added burden of Madame St. Paul's Bridal Training. Ranma had swallowed every trace of masculine pride and choked down a lot more femininity than he had intended. "So, yeah, despite all that man-among-men crap he spouts all the time, Genma has no problems seeing his son as a daughter!" Akane concluded. 

            "Yeah, at least as long as it serves to keep his belly full, or to keep him from having to slice it open," Ukyo had agreed. "It's too bad he had to make Ran-chan sign that contract too."

            "That stupid contract is the reason Ranma's being robbed of his whole life!" Akane growled. Worse, she kept to herself, once the other boy was Ranma, the fathers would be rushing them to the altar as fast as possible to fulfill their pact. "If he can't figure out a way to stop the bleeding, he'll even die."

            "Is there some way to stop them?"

            "I don't know. I mean, technically it is a cure," Akane sighed.

            "The cure sounds worse than the curse."

            They had gone on talking through lunch, and Akane had been dwelling off and on over the last thing Ukyo had said on the matter. "I can hardly imagine Ranma without the curse now. I mean, sure, he'd still have it if he survives too, and he or Copy-chan would be Ranko, but it would be strange to see Ranma get wet and not turn into a girl. I've gotten so used to it!"

            The truth was, so had Akane. A struggling weed of romance had been budding between her and Ranma the boy, but the branch of friendship between them seemed to thrive best between her and Ranma the girl. Sure, it was a confusing and infuriating friendship, and it did seem to get in the way of everything, but it made Ranma unique in her mind. She had no idea what it would take for Copy-kun to remember being Ranma, or how long. She was not sure how she would feel about an all male Ranma, especially if he was overshadowed by an all female, or the original cursed Ranma. Such thoughts often tormented her whenever Ranma stumbled onto something that might cure him. It was not that she wanted him to be a girl, or in anyway preferred him as a girl. At least that was what she desperately hoped. She frowned. Maybe she just believed, deep down, that as long as Ranma was cursed there was no way the two of them would get married. Maybe it was just safer that way. 

            The moment Copy-kun became Ranma, that cushion would just disappear. Perhaps that explained why she could not imagine her reaction to being engaged or married to him. Perhaps she was afraid that, without the excuse of the curse, she be forced to confront her feelings. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes. Her thoughts were already too personal and honest for her to deal with. She sighed and muttered under her breath, "It's not like I have to know right now. Even when he's totally normal, Ranma can hardly remember last week. What are the odds the other two will remember anything soon?"

            Thinking of the copies, and deciding she had wasted enough thought on the boy, she considered the girl. She certainly had one thing Ranma never had shown. She was quite happy with her femininity, and not afraid to show it. Of course, she showed it with the same arrogant ego-centricity Ranma invested in his manhood. It was kind of funny that Ranma had more poise as a woman than Copy-chan, but at least it was not just an act with the duplicate. If the girl could just get a clue, she might make a good friend, Akane thought. As she was, she was almost as lost as poor Ryouga. Akane chuckled under her breath. Maybe that was why Copy-chan kept running into Ranma's rival. 

            Akane looked out the window, watching the water stream across the glass. The image of the two of them kissing in the park came back to her. Akane had retreated as quickly as she could, but she had not missed the fact that Ryouga had responded as passionately before she had interrupted. Akane had been discreet about the incident with the koi rod and Ranma, and she had tried her best not to hold it against him. The poor boy was so lost and lonely, and so incredibly shy, how could he be blamed for his unwanted attraction to Ranma's girl half. After all, her fiancé had used it to mess with Ryouga too many times to count. It was kind of tragic that Copy-chan had appeared to confuse his relationship with Akari. At the same time, Ryouga seemed to have some reservations about the pig-loving girl. Akane had not been blind to Ryouga's contempt for her pet P-chan. To her knowledge, Ryouga had always gone out of his way to avoid her pet pig, and absolutely hated it when Ranma teased him by calling him by her pet's name. Akane had pointedly ignored Ranma constantly implying that Ryouga and P-chan were connected. Just because she knew about Jusenkyo curses did not mean she could be conned into thinking everyone she met turned into something else. She felt that the comments were just Ranma's way of getting back at Ryouga for laughing at his curse. She had not realized how much Ryouga hated pigs until she saw his reaction to Akari's love of pigs. 

            It had reminded Akane of her own feelings about boys. She had no idea what Ryouga's problem with pigs was, but Ranma provoked his rival over it the same way he provoked her by always calling her a tom-boy. It seemed strange that Ranma had actually encouraged Ryouga's relationship with Akari. At least until it became clear how much it irritated Ryouga. Now that she thought about it, it had to irk the lost boy to have a girl throw herself at him simply for defeating her sumo-pig. It reminded Akane of Shampoo and her kiss of marriage. She wondered why people came up with such stupid rules for forming relationships. Maybe, just maybe, it would be best to encourage two people who seemed to want to be together? Considering what Copy-chan faced to become Ranko, it would be best for her to have someone who appreciated her for the girl she was, and did not hold her male origins against her. Maybe, if she and Ryouga were truly in love, she would not be destroyed by Ranma's memories. Akane could remember the depression that had threatened Ranma when his curse was locked. She also remembered how the curse had not mattered a bit when he was in love, under the influence of the koi rod. 

            Akane contemplated this for a while, a plan beginning to form in her head. 

AN: This chapter took a lot longer than intended. As stated in the beginning, this story establishes several things meant to be explored in a sequel to Ranma Nibunnoichi while remaining inside the scope of the original series. As tends to happen, the fleshed out form of a story can be incredibly different from the original outline. I've noted the suggestion to treat this as an AU, but since this is fanfic I don't feel it is necessary to assert that. It's a safe assumption that Rumiko Takahashi did not dream of this story! So, my objective is a little complicated by how the story in progress is interpreted by the reader. Has too much happened for Ranma to continue through the conclusion of the original series? If it can be said without offending Ms. Takahashi, I submit that many of the experiences Ranma has had, in canon, would beg the same question if the original work had been in a novel format. The series skimmed over the surface of a very deep topic, and it is that topic I meant to explore as I wrote. I read a little more into the events forming the foundation of this story, and I hope it is evident that the changes you witness here are rooted in the series. Under the unique circumstances of this story, Ranma confronts the consequences of things he can no longer ignore. It's a learning process, and I make no guarantees that he will embrace any or all of it. So, if you are seriously wondering how things could possible go back to "normal" after all of this, well… keep watching. I might just pull it off! 

            So, here we are at chapter 15! It is two full days since the male copy emerged, and he has awakened as the new and improved, uncursed Ranma. This can't possibly be a good thing! Worse, Akane is plotting something to encourage romance between Ryouga and Ranko. Dare we imagine? And what about Cologne's secret plot? What will she do if she proves that Ranma was Fa Shen in a previous life? And another thing, are the new Ranma and Ranko afflicted with any residue of being Copy-kun and Copy-chan? Have we really seen the last of the amorous duo? What could possibly happen in the next five days? With this crowd? Are you kidding!? See you next time on, Ranma Nibunnoichi: Reflections!

Ja ne!


	16. The Drowned Girl

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Sixteen: The Drowned Girl

The heavens continued to weep, despite the absence of a certain kendoist to comment on it, as the group waited for their train, at the station servicing the town nearest to Mirror Mansion. Cologne had quietly observed the three aspects of Ranma, following the scene on the road, waiting in particular to confront the "cured" boy when she got the chance. The opportunity came at the train station, when the girls separated on the way to the platform. One went to retrieve the books Ranma-chan had gotten from Dr. Tofu from the locker they had rented before their trek to the mansion, and the other to find Ryouga and lead him to the correct platform. Ranma seemed too distracted to notice he had been left alone with the amazon matriarch. The old woman perched on the back of a bench and tapped Ranma on the shoulder.

            "You did not stop to consider what you would lose for a cure, did you Son-in-law?" she challenged the boy softly, reminding him of the scene at the yatai. When they had reached the town, Ranma, Ranko and Ranma-chan had crowded around a yatai, the instant they scented food, nearly frightening the vendor with their hungry faces and growling stomachs. Ryouga and Cologne had paused, considering the risk to their health if they dared to come between the Saotome triplets and food in the process of placing their own orders. The street vendor recovered quickly, after he realized the quantity of food being ordered would make up for the business lost due to rain, and threw in a complementary serving for the red-headed twins, much to the disgust of Ranma and Ryouga. Aside from trading dirty looks, a few red-eyes and a little grumbling, the trio focused all their attention on inhaling their food while Cologne exchanged a bit of gossip with the cook. She could not help but notice the hint of venom in the way the girls took their little revenge on the cured boy.

            Ranma turned to look at the old ghoul and snorted. "I wouldn't have thought about losing out on free food if they hadn't rubbed my nose in it," he looked away, pretending to be indifferent. 

            "Oh, you lost a bit more than free food. Wouldn't you say?"

            "What? You think I actually liked bein' a girl half of the time!?"

            "Oh, we both know my prejudices, but since it seems a worthy question, perhaps you'd care to answer it," she prodded.

            "Huh?" he snapped back around to stare at her.

            "Did you?"

            "Of course not!"

            "Oh, that's an easy answer," she dismissed. "Why don't you put some thought into it?"

            "What's there to think about? I'm finally cured. The price is… it really sucks. I mean, they're both me, and they're both stuck with the curse in one way or the other, and I don't know which one has it worse!" he confessed, keeping his voice low, but unable to keep his feelings out of it. 

            "That's a bit more intelligent, but it doesn't answer the question, now does it?" Cologne hopped onto the arm rest so he could turn and face her more easily from the bench. Seeing the confusion on his face, she prompted, "Everything they know, up to the last hour, you know. You heard what Ranma-chan said on the road, did you not?"

            He scowled, "Yeah. I heard it. But what's the point of worryin' about it? I'm just a guy now. I don't have to think about bein' a girl no more, and it's probably better if I don't. Maybe there's something to like, I really didn't get a chance to find out. The point is, I don't wanna like it. I have enough to worry about." Ranma crossed his arms and looked at the tracks again.

            Cologne sighed. "If the other two are like you, which is practically certain, they will no doubt choose to think the same way."

            "What are you getting at?"

            "That should be simple enough for you to guess, Son-in-law," Cologne criticized. With a dignified harrumph, she interjected, "So it goes, the Elders cling to life and mete out spoonfuls of wisdom to children who can not trouble themselves to think. What is the world coming to?"

            Ranma frowned and retorted, "I'm not an idiot, Cologne. I know what they're going through, and I know what they think. I spent my life on the road, so I know that the only thing I really have is myself. 'S all anyone has, really, and if life takes that away from you…" Ranma trailed off. The voices of the two girls could be heard coming closer. He turned and looked at them, each carrying a stack of books and trying to guide Ryouga along verbally. 

            "Your OTHER left, Ryouga! Geez! Can't you just keep your eyes on us and follow?" one of them was shouting.

            "Shut up, Ranma!"

            "Ranko," came the tired reply.

            "It's all the same thing!"

            "I wish!"

            Ranma returned his gaze to Cologne and dropped his voice, "Bein' Ranko wouldn't be that bad. I mean, she was right, I'd still be me. But I would not look forward to life as a girl." His eyes turned to watch as Ranko tossed her pile to Ranma-chan and chased off after Ryouga. "She's better than him. She always will be, but if she ends up with him she'll always be treated as less than him. She'll spend her time raising a bunch of brats who can't even find their way to the bathroom, and everything she has invested in the Art will wither away. She'll never be able to open a dojo or train, cuz no one will respect a female sensei. Even if you ignore everything my Pops says about girls, all of that is still true in Japan," he explained. 

            "Sadly, that is true of most of the world," Cologne sighed.

            "There's more though," Ranma added. "If she chooses to be a girl, she'll have to go somewhere else, leave Nerima, or she'll never really be accepted as a girl. To everyone around her, she's a guy in a female body. The girls will never really accept her and the guys will mock her. The other one will have it worse, though. The curse will never stay hidden long enough for her to be accepted as a guy or a girl."

            "Why do you refer to that one as 'her'?"

            "Huh?"

            "Well, for the most part, she is you. She is the original, and originally a boy. I think it's safe to say she's a man in her own mind, so why do you see her as female?"

            "You're doing it too," he pointed out.

            "Well, from me, ascribing the female gender is a sign of respect. You don't have the same excuse," the matriarch pointed out. 

            Ranma stared at her, trying to figure it out. The girl in question had closed the remaining distance and he could not comment further without her hearing. 

            "I can't believe that idiot!" Ranma-chan huffed, dropping the pile of medical tomes on the bench beside Ranma. "I swear, we took our eyes off him for a second and he found his way into a utility closet!"

            "Ryouga could get lost in a room with no corners or doors," Ranma chuckled. He picked up one of the books and examined the title. "This is a lot of reading. We're gonna have to divide it up and break it down for each other if we're going to start training this week."

            "Well, we read some of it on the train here, we can get in another hour on the way back," Ranma-chan noted, leaning over to see which book he was looking at. "I already marked some sections for us to try tonight. It would be nice if we knew someone who had read all of these and used them. Dr. Tofu might have, but he doesn't have much time to spare."

            "Why don't you speak to Happosai?" Cologne put in. "I know he is rather difficult, but there are few people alive who know as much about combining shiatsu and chi techniques. My own expertise is reserved for members of the tribe, so I am limited in what I can reveal to you. Unless, of course…"

            "Don't say it. You promised you wouldn't use this to force me into marrying Shampoo," Ranma and Ranma-chan said together. They looked at each other. "Uh oh. We synched."

            / "Even though you're a girl?" Ranma asked. "Oh. Almost."

            \ "Even though I am a girl?" Ranma-chan asked. "Oh. Almost."

            "That is both amusing and disturbing," Cologne smiled. "Sort yourselves out, then. To return to my point, Happosai is the grandmaster of your school. Seeing as you are, collectively, his best student, I am sure he would take the matter seriously enough to be of use."

            "Uh, well. I sort of… trapped him in a mirror," the two winced. "I think he'd be too pissed to help if we tried to let him out to ask him."

            "You have a mirror trap? Hmmm. Not hard to guess where that came from. Well, where is it?"

            "At home."

            "Very well then. I'll come along and go in to explain the situation to Happi so you can let him out without turning all of Nerima upside down." As she concluded, Ranko could be seen coming around the corner again, with Ryouga in tow. They arrived just in time for the train. As it pulled into the station, the group gathered up the books. A few minutes later, they were all in their seats, the trio absorbed in medical texts, and on their way home. 

Outside the windows of the hurtling train, the landscape of Tokyo suburbs flashed by. In spite of the fact that train rides were unusual for Ryouga, taken more by chance than by intent, he was oblivious to the sights outside the glass. There seemed to be little reason for him to join the Saotome triplets in perusing the medical texts, since the only personal benefit he could expect from their endeavor would depend on their finding a cure for the mirror's curse and him being tempted to risk the same sort of division. He was not even thinking of that much, as compared to the consequences of either outcome to this strange situation. It was still sinking in that the Ranma he knew could die because of the reflections. That possibility was manifest in his decision to grant his mother's wishes for a manly son and a womanly daughter. 

            As he continued to study the girl who had stolen his heart, and mourned for the fact that she was no longer quite the same girl as Copy-chan, he thought about Ranma-chan's pronouncement. Ranko was a female identity, not just an alias of Ranma. The two red-heads sitting side by side across the aisle from him, heads bent over their books, both yearned to be Ranma, but the boy sitting next to Ryouga had already trumped their claim. For both of them, the only lingering claim on who they were was to embrace that feminine identity. 

            The very idea was torturing Ryouga. 

            The events of the afternoon were nagging at him mercilessly. It was strange that the clarity of his thoughts and feelings had been shattered the instant his goal of finding Copy-chan had been fulfilled. When she jumped on him outside the mansion, he had panicked. He had instantly tried to deny his feelings, dreaded his attraction to the girl and freaked out at her advances. Before he could even gather his wits, he had lost her. Though he had responded to her request for his protection, he could not save her from being overwhelmed by Ranma's memory. He had tried to be brave about it, when she rejected his touch. Even as he pointed out his fallibility, wrestling with his affections with Akane and Akari, he grieved over the loss of Copy-chan. She had been so sweet, so innocent, so passionate, and he had wasted the little time she'd had hating her because of her origin in Ranma. Now she was Ranma, in mind, and he hated himself for still wanting her. 

            He could not even hate Ranma for this, though it really was Ranma who had taken her away forever. No, it was Ranma's fault, but all that was left of her was now a part of Ranma. A part of all three of them. At first, that had been a very abstract notion, but after witnessing Ranma-chan's actions in the rain, after hearing her declaration, there was no doubt that the girl he loved was still there. Worse, while one part of his mind linked her to Ranko, what survived of Copy-chan's physical existence, another part now clung to her in Ranma-chan. Her words, her actions, had revealed that Copy-chan's spirit endured in her. _"Oh yeah, it happened when I was in love with you," _she had said, when he asked if she wanted to be a girl. Her spirit had looked out of Ranma-chan's eyes at that moment, and Ryouga's heart had lurched painfully in his chest. Somehow, he had understood that she was referring to both the koi rod and the time she had spent as Copy-chan, and he had finally realized that the girl he loved had always been in Ranma, showing only when the boy dropped his guard. It had been torturing him since. The girl—no, the person—he loved was Ranma. 

            As much as he hated the persona that was Ranma, the person inside the personality had always drawn Ryouga. That was why he had always felt so injured by Ranma's coarse manner, rude insults and taunting behavior. It just killed him that the person he wanted to respect him most belittled him the worst. It really pissed him off that Ranma treated Akane the same way. Actually, the similarity of Ranma's treatment of them was one of the pillars of his affection for Akane. Sympathy. Ranma's abuse was the thing they had most in common. It made them natural allies, and had drawn them together several times. Now that he really was thinking about it, the other thing that drew him to Akane was that, of the people he had become most familiar with, she was the most like Ryouga himself. He could not help laughing as he suddenly pictured Akane as the female version of himself.

            Ranma, Ranko and Ranma-chan looked up from their reading to stare at Ryouga in annoyed curiosity. "What's so funny, P-chan?" they asked in unison. Ryouga just laughed harder as the question hit him in surround-sound. "I think he's snapped," they all observed together, then noticed they had synched up. "Oh great!" they all sighed. 

            Cologne, after glancing out the window, cleared her throat and announced, "We're coming into Nerima. Put the books away and get ready to go. We should hurry home so I can talk to Happosai and see if we can get him to help out."

            That sobered everyone up. Happosai had made a point of the fact that he had never learned anything intended to help people, and while he often had provided assistance to people it usually served to further his own perverted ends. Preserving the boon of multiple Ranma-chans was probably sufficient motivation for him to chip in on the effort, but it was certain to cause as much trouble as it resolved. This thought remained on their minds as the train pulled into the station and they all marched onto the platform. As they filed out of the station, Ranma-chan turned to address Cologne. "Are you sure you want him to get involved in this?" she asked with a shiver.

            "Absolutely not. I must say I'd prefer you kept him locked up for eternity, but there is no challenging the fact that his expertise in this area exceeds that of anyone alive, outside of the tribe," Cologne reasserted. "I did give my word I would not pressure you to join the tribe, but it would be necessary before I can offer unconditional assistance."

            "And that would mean marrying Shampoo," they guessed.

            "That is the only option with the necessary expedience," Cologne nodded. "You might not have enough time to pursue an alternative method of adoption into the tribe. The laws governing such possibilities are the most strict and unyielding in our tribe. Our people have suffered too many tragedies as the result of trusting outsiders."

            "Tell me about it," Ranko muttered.

            Cologne froze and turned to look at the girl. The look on the girl's face sent a chill into the matriarch's bones. With studied casualness, she shifted into her native tongue and prompted the girl to continue, "Perhaps you could enlighten the others, child."

            There was something about the tone of Cologne's speech, as she had commented on the basis for the severe laws of the Amazons, that had touched on a corner of Ranko's mind. She had spoken without even thinking, and responded to the prompt just as thoughtlessly. "Well, for more than a thousand years," she began, falling into perfect Mandarin while her gaze turned inward, "we accepted any woman who asked for sanctuary within the tribe, without suspicion. They had to earn status and rights through their efforts, of course, but they were never subjected to testing. It never occurred to us that our enemies would use the spring of drowned woman and lock their curses to infiltrate the tribe. My mother never forgave herself for prompting the idea when she took refuge from the Musk among the Amazons. Only the fact that the infiltrators first tried to abduct Pa Shen gave us any warning of the threat," Ranko explained, almost entranced by the memory. 

            Ranko blinked to erase the image of carnage that accompanied the painful memory. She then noticed the perplexed looks on Ranma and Ryouga's faces, Ranma-chan's pallor at the shared memory, and Cologne's stone expression.

            "When did you learn to speak Mandarin?" Ryouga demanded in the pause. When Ranko stared back in confusion, Ryouga elaborated, "I've picked up a lot of languages in my travels, but I'm not that good with Mandarin. Cologne said something in Mandarin and you replied fluently. I only understood part of it."

            "I didn't get any of it," Ranma grumbled.

            Ranma-chan looked from him to her twin, then turned to Cologne. "I didn't even realize she was speaking another language. I understood. I even remembered the events she was talking about, but… I don't remember where from. It's like suddenly remembering a dream," she confided. 

            Cologne just stared at the girls. There it was, simple as that. It was true. Ranma was the reincarnation of Fa Shen. Both of the girls had tapped into the memory of that forgotten life. "Have you ever experienced this before?" she asked cautiously.

            Both girls nodded. Even Ranma perked up and nodded. The twins looked at him, and let him speak, since he had precedence. "It's kind of strange now, but it happened when I was Copy-chan," he began. The other two nodded and he went on. "The stuff that Kuno tried to choke down my throat at the end of the date…" he shivered as he realized that he would always carry these memories. "It all mixed together and knocked me for a loop. While I was passed out I had this dream. I was at Jusenkyo, and this big battle had ended. The men were ravaging the women from my party and I was being strangled and stripped by this guy…" He blanched as he realized the man reminded him of Genma, or the panda he turned into. "The leaders stopped him from raping me, but they tied me up and threw me into a spring. I drowned…"

            "I think I was remembering the death of the girl who created the Nyanniichaun," Ranko interjected. 

            "Fa Shen," Ranma-chan added. She scratched her head and studied the matriarch. "Have you ever heard of a cursed person discovering the memories of the person or animal their curse is based on?"

            Cologne sighed and nodded. "Yes, I have. It is a very rare occurrence, and it only happens for one reason. The curses seem very arbitrary in how they affect their victims, but the secret, the difference between effects, is based on similarities between the victim and the curse. Each spring has a number of different effects that can be emphasized. Usually, it is the greatest difference that governs the curse. If the biggest difference is species, that is the prominent effect. If the biggest difference is sex, that is the focus of the effect. If the victim is the same species and gender, then the personality of the victim is cursed. Every spring has the ability to impose the exact form of the original victim, but over time that becomes very rare. You and Herb were cursed by the same pool, but Herb's curse turns him into a female version of himself. Your curse turns you into a twin of Fa Shen."

            "Is that why we can remember something from her life?"

            "No," Cologne responded. "Not precisely. Even the personality curses do not grant the memory of the person who imprinted the pool. It is true, however, that the pools do capture the mind and spirit of the original victims. A part of the soul lingers in the pool as well, while the rest is free to be reincarnated. When a person is cursed with the exact form of the original, it is because the ghost has attempted to merge with the victim to escape from its grave. That would allow the victim to gain the memory of the original, but it only succeeds if the victim happens to be a reincarnation of the original."

            They all stared at her. 

The storm that had raced in from the countryside had apparently decided to park itself over Nerima. While it endeavored to flood the drainage canals of the ward, the students of Furinkan High lingered in the halls, grumbling as they slipped on their outdoor shoes and crowded around the umbrella rack in vain hope of finding a loaner umbrella for the walk home. Akane and Ukyo paused as they saw Kodachi rush in from outside and sprint to where Tatewaki was waiting beside Nabiki. The middle Tendo daughter had already sold the legitimate story explaining Ranma's absence from school, but a specially tailored version was reserved for the Kuno siblings. The two official fiancées turned and followed the three as they headed into a classroom. Nabiki raised an eyebrow as Akane and Ukyo filed into the room, but ignored their presence with a shrug. Turning to the siblings, she cleared her throat.

            "I am glad you could both make it here," she began. "I am afraid I have some bad news for both of you about the curse afflicting Ranma and the Pig-Tailed-Girl."

            "Tendo Nabiki, in light of all the rumors flourishing in the halls of this learning institution, I deemed it necessary to confer with you in hopes of illuminating the truth," Tatewaki spouted.

            "My brother contacted me and informed me that the rabble of this school have begun speaking of some mortal peril facing my beloved Ranma-sama," Kodachi posed in anguish. "I am troubled that such rumors imply that it has become widely known that my beloved is accursedly bound to that harridan!"

            "As the situation has become a danger to the health and well-being of Ranma and the Pig-Tailed-Girl, requiring that they be excused from school, there was no way the student body would not learn the details," Nabiki dismissed the implication that she had divulged information they had paid so dearly to acquire. Rather than elaborate, she cut to the chase. "The bad news is simply this. The curses affecting Ranma and the Pig-Tailed-Girl have bound them to each other with a fatal flaw. If the two of them are physically separated for any great length of time, they will both sicken and die. If, for any other reason, one of them dies, the other will die as well."

            "Say it isn't so!"

            "How can this be?"

            "It's true. This has been confirmed by experts, so I warn you to keep it in mind if you value their lives. Because of the vulnerability of their condition, they cannot be exposed to certain risks that exist at school. Since that vulnerability also applies to being separated, the worst thing you could do is repeat what you tried in the park yesterday."

            "But, you can't mean we must give up all hope of dating them!"

            "There must be some way of undoing this tragic bond!"

            "Right now, they are working on finding a solution. I recommend that you restrain yourselves and allow them time to figure it out," Nabiki warned them sternly. Of course, she had to throw them a bone. "One of the things that became clear, however, is that it could be fatal for them to become intimate. In order to prevent this, they have essentially broken up. That's the doom of the curse, to be bound to each other, but unable to risk consummating that bond." It was sort of a perversion of the truth, but she stated it in a way that would temper the Kunos' reactions. "You won't see them fawning over each other again," she promised them.

            The siblings eyes widened hopefully. Their failure the previous afternoon had grated on them both. Unable to fathom the reaction of their dates as genuine rejection, they clung to the idea that Ranma and the Pig-Tailed-Girl were driven by the warped dictates of the curse that was, as Nabiki insisted, designed to destroy them. It made a kind of sense that a curse that lured them to death in each other's arms would also drive them away from those who might come to their succor. Apparently the couple had become aware of their peril and now endeavored to thwart their doom.

            "Is there nothing we can do to aid them?" Kuno asked.

            "Sure," Nabiki shrugged, "Don't fight with them. Don't interfere with them. Do not try to separate them from each other. Make sure that Hinnako never uses her attacks on them. The rest is up to them and the experts."

            The pair considered that thoughtfully. The idea that the well being of the objects of their affection was dependant on that of their rivals was a bitter pill to swallow. Worse, they both held the opinion that their rivals lacked the ability to resist the charms of their beloveds. It would be up to them to keep an eye on them somehow and ensure that they did not succumb to temptation. Rather than expose their intentions, they thanked Nabiki for the update and departed.

            "I don't like it," Akane said after they left. "They took that a lot better than I would expect. Those two have never backed down in the face of reality. They're going to be trouble again, I just know it."

            "We just need to make sure that Ran-chan and the copies never face them alone," Ukyo proposed. "The trick is to find a way to protect them without them realizing that's what we're doing. It'd hurt their pride too much to let someone defend them."

            "None of them are vulnerable to any physical threat," Nabiki countered. "It's the treachery those two are capable of that's the real danger."

            They sighed and headed outside to walk home. Although Ukyo burned to accompany them to the dojo and see Ranma, she had a business to run. With a heavy heart she bid them farewell at her turn and rushed to her restaurant. Akane and Nabiki trudged on through the rain, sharing the umbrella Nabiki had snagged earlier in the day with predictable foresight. Arriving home, they discovered that the others had arrived home just ahead of them. 

            Akane followed Nabiki into the Tea Room where the triplets were sitting around the table pouring through books. Off to the side, Ryouga was sipping tea and talking quietly with Kasumi. Seeing him, Akane smiled, remembering what she had been musing over in class. As Kasumi welcomed her sisters home, and presented snacks, Akane and Nabiki made their way to the table. Before Akane could think of a way to interrupt the reading trio, Nabiki suddenly spoke up.

            "What's the trap mirror doing out on the table?"

            Ranma looked up and answered, "Hey, Akane. Nabiki. Cologne thinks Happosai might be able to help us. She went in to talk to him, and calm him down so we can let him out and ask."

            Akane and Nabiki stared at him for a second. Because the boy next to him had hair and clothes slightly more damp that the others, they had assumed he was Ranma, but when the other boy spoke they both felt a nagging sense that he was the real Ranma. It was not so much that his mannerisms gave him away, because the copies had inherited such things. It was something more subtle. Something in his eyes and expression that had never been in Copy-kun. The boy who greeted and answered them had more self awareness, more confidence in himself. 

            "How long has she been in there?" Nabiki asked, reaching out to pick the compact mirror up to examine it. 

            "I dunno," he shrugged. "Maybe half an hour. She went in just after we got back. It's about time to let them out, though." Nabiki opened the mirror and turned it over. She waited for him to nod before patting it on the back. Fortunately, she had turned slightly away, so the pile of lingerie that accompanied the diminutive elders did not swamp the table and bury those sitting around it. 

            "Hot damn! I was getting tired of bein' cooped up in there!" Happosai crowed as he landed lightly on his feet, followed by Cologne. The water balloon he lobbed caught Ranma off guard right in the face. The splash caught Ranma-kun, sitting beside him, and triggered the curse. "Well, I'll be damned! I thought I was aiming for the right one!" He picked up a towel from the edge of the table, still slightly damp from when Ranma-chan last used hot water, and pounced on the girl. "Here, Ranma-chan! Let Grandpa Happosai dry you off!" he cried as he buried himself in her bosom. 

            Nabiki and Akane did a double take during the transformation. They had been positive they had spotted the real Ranma too. While Ranma-chan, with assistance from Ranko, tried to subdue the perverted martial arts master, Ranma looked up and silently mouthed a thank-you.

            "Happi," Cologne's voice cut in, in a warning tone, "you promised not to start trouble." She looked around and hopped up to the table. Kasumi was on hand to offer a cup of tea to the old woman. After thanking the eldest daughter, the matriarch took a sip, then addressed the room. "Now that everyone is home, it's time to explain where things stand. Could someone please summon the fathers?"

            Kasumi rose and went out to call Soun and Genma in from the dojo. Happosai retreated from the red-heads' attempt to pulverize him, tucking a bra filched from Ranko into his gi, and settled next to Cologne. Though she noticed his prize, she was too shocked by the fact that the girl had been wearing one to glare at Happosai. Once the fathers had come in and joined everyone at the table, Cologne quickly related the events of the day. Naturally, she did not spare the youths in her recapitulation. Ranma, Ranko and Ranma-chan all blushed as hard as Ryouga when she described the meeting between them at the mansion. There were a few exclamations as she detailed the examination of the mirror and the events of the exorcism. Cologne confessed her own surprise that the procedure had restored all their memories so quickly. 

            "So, Boy," Genma interrupted, "you remember everything now?"

            Ranma nodded. Ranma-chan explained the discovery of their ability to fall into perfect synch, and how that compelled them to establish an order of precedence, designating the boy as Ranma and the girl as Ranko, as well as the necessity for her to retain a claim to both identities or else perish.

            "Unless what we discovered returning from the train station can be taken into account," Cologne interrupted the cursed teen. The triplets froze at that. They had been in shock after Cologne's revelation that Ranma was the reincarnation of the drowned girl. They had not responded as she clarified that Fa Shen had been an amazon prodigy revered since the time of her death. Sensing they had brain lock, she had dropped the subject until now. 

            To their relief, Genma bulldozed past the matriarch's comment to pursue his own interest. "That seems a sensible solution, at least until the matter of the bleeding is resolved. However, in light of the fact that the boy is Ranma, it is time for him to assume the responsibilities of my son. I have discussed this with Tendo-kun, and he agrees that the boy takes precedence in the engagement. I hope you find this arrangement more suitable, Akane."

            Akane gulped and turned to stare at him. This was happening too fast. "I don't see how I can object. This is essentially what Ranma proposed," she admitted, referring to the conversation they had that morning. "I just didn't expect this to be resolved so quickly." She turned to Ranma-chan and Ranko and placed a hand over one of each of theirs. "I do want to remain friends with you. Both of you. Nothing has changed in that respect," she tried to placate.

            They took her hands and squeezed them gently. They understood that the gesture was her way of assuring them that she did not hold their escape from the engagement against them. "Sorry 'bout this," they murmured in unison.

            "It's not your fault. You just focus on finding a solution so none of you have to die, okay?"

            They nodded. 

            Cologne resumed her narration, which quickly reached the point she had been debating since it had come up. The revelation about Fa Shen had some so unexpectedly. She had not had time to decide whether or not to share it with his friends and family, and cursed herself for saying as much as she did in her excitement. Fortunately, the need for secrecy was over. The fact was established and she could announce it with confidence. There was no risk of looking like a fool now. Bringing out the book she had made the others stop by the Cat Café to pick up, she cleared her throat. "There is one final matter which had come to light as a result of this fiasco," she announced, opening the book to the page she had marked. "Thanks to the stupidity of Kuno, Copy-chan had a near death experience and tapped into some memories that confirm one of the strangest legends of Jusenkyo." She quickly told them of ancient stories that claimed that souls of those who died in the springs could be resurrected through the power of the curse afflicting a reincarnation of that individual. "In Ranma's case, there is a record of the girl who drowned in that spring allowing us to confirm the memories they have inherited."

            The others leaned in to examine the portrait revealed in the open book. It was a photograph of an exquisitely detailed painting that had been pasted carefully to the thick page. The girl it depicted could be none other than Ranma's cursed form. 


	17. The Girl You Dream Of

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections 

A. V. Morgan

Part Seventeen: The Girl You Dream Of

By the strains of dawn's early light, slipping like the succulent breeze through the open window, Ryouga lay in the guest room pondering. He had a mind well trained for wandering, and if there were a hundred paths to follow all at once he fared equally well traversing them. Though a specific destination eluded his thoughts, the roaming itself was more the point. He still did not know how the revelation that Ranma had been a girl in his previous life affected the feelings he had invested in Copy-chan. He had been as stark, stuttering shocked as the rest while Cologne detailed the history of Fa Shen and the path leading to her watery grave. It was a life that rivaled that of the martial arts prodigy they were all familiar with. Ryouga still gaped at the picture of a girl as proud and strong, and perhaps even as arrogant, as the boy he regarded as both friend and nemesis. Compelling as the topic was, he still was distracted by the minor, but personally more extraordinary fact that he had spent the night as a man, sharing a room with an all-male Ranma, under the Tendo roof. 

            Was that because Akane had slipped up to him, as the Saotome triplets excused themselves to concentrate on their study with Happosai, and made such a shocking proposal? Or was it that he could not face the torture of slipping into Akane's room as P-chan where he would have to choose between Akane's bed, or the futon shared by the two red-heads? What had he been thinking the previous afternoon?

            Throughout the meeting he had been dragged along to witness, Akane had been slipping odd looks in his direction. Ryouga had been hard pressed to avoid meeting her gaze, since he was in the habit of studying her surreptitiously while in her presence. She had been gracing the Saotomes with meaningful looks as well. For Genma, she reserved the kind of ire and contempt usually reserved for Ranma. For Ranma, she held an almost frightened and pensive look. For Ranma-chan and Ranko, she assumed an air of concern and sadness. Still, the most troubling look was the look of intent she kept turning on Ryouga as her gaze wandered from Ranko. The last time, as she watched Ranko trailing the others out to the dojo, she had turned toward Ryouga and approached smiling.

            "Ryouga. I'm glad they found you and brought you home with them," she opened, striking up a conversation. "I hope you can stick around for a few days and help out a bit."

            "I'm not sure how much help I can be, really," Ryouga prevaricated.

            "Oh, don't be silly! You're the best martial artist I know, next to Ranma," she assured him. "And, it's not like you haven't been there to help him before, even though he's always teasing you. You're a real friend to Ranma, and that's what he needs most right now."

            "It's nothing, really," he flushed, feeling sweat bead his brow. Under the best of circumstances, his feelings regarding Ranma were confused and conflicted. In perfect honesty, the fact that he had ever helped Ranma was a fluke, since he had typically involved himself in anger or self-interest when ever they had joined forces. More than once he had crossed the line, in his own mind, and tried to kill Ranma. It had never bothered him until Copy-chan had become entrenched in his rival. 

            Seeing the self-conscious look on his face, Akane lowered her voice and addressed his suspected concern. "I know the two of you fight a lot, and you've said and done things that you're not proud of," she met his eyes and smiled, "but you were also the first one to defend him from the others when he was weak." They both knew she was referring to the time Happosai used moxibustion to steal Ranma's strength, and how Ryouga had stopped Kuno, Principle Kuno and Mousse, among others, from taking revenge on Ranma. "He's even more vulnerable now," she added. 

            Ryouga sighed and looked away, "I already promised Copy-chan I would help protect her. By extension that means all of them, even though none of them are really her any more." There was no point in not saying it. Cologne had already revealed that conversation to everyone. He had given his word as a martial artist, and he would honor it in her memory, even as he struggled to decide if the feelings he had for her could ever apply to those she had become.

            "You really cared for her, didn't you?" Akane asked softly. 

            Ryouga twitched in pain. It still galled him that his moment of weakness had been witnessed by Akane. He had interrupted Cologne to clarify the purity of his intentions, as the scene between him and Copy-chan at the mansion was retold from her perspective. He still burned with shame that Akane was left with the impression that he harbored feelings for Ranma in female form, and thanks to Copy-chan he'd never be able to deny it again. "I didn't want to," he finally said. "But I couldn't let her die because of my rivalry with Ranma. She really was a girl, and that changed things. Made a lot of things worse, too, since there are others I… care about." That was as close as he could hope to get to telling Akane his true feelings about her. 

            "I think she cared about you too," Akane offered, sympathetically. "I think she loved you. I think she was hoping she could be with you." Akane bit her lip and swallowed. She quickly related the small confession Copy-chan had made, in front of Akari no less. "I don't think it was just the compulsion talking."

            Ryouga shrugged, concealing his grief at hearing such confirmation too late. "You should have heard what she said to me at the mansion, before…" he choked it off. "It doesn't matter now. She's going by Ranko now, but she's really Ranma inside. Even if she has the same feelings, she isn't going to feel the same way about them."

            "She's not happy about being a girl," Akane agreed. "But if she's in love, I don't think it really matters. It didn't before."

            "I wish I'd never bought that stupid koi rod," Ryouga muttered, blushing.

            Akane sighed and bit her tongue for a minute. "I tend to believe you, when you say you didn't believe it would work, and you did not use it intentionally. It sort of tricked you into admitting feelings you could never admit while Ranma was his normal self," she swallowed nervously, amazed at her own determination to explore this delicate subject. "But, you're not the only one who had to go through that."

            Ryouga turned to her and gaped in confusion. "What are you talking about?" he demanded, hoping he could change the subject, or at least shift it away from himself. 

            "Well, you have to remember that the first time I saw Ranma, he was a girl. Even though I learned the truth right away, I was still stuck with that first impression. It was bad enough being engaged to a boy I didn't know, but when I thought of him as a girl, first, it just made everything worse," she admitted.

            Ryouga considered that. Under the circumstances, and in light of one humorous thought from earlier in the day about certain similarities between himself and Akane, he dared to ask a question that would have put his fragile heart at risk. "Do you mean you love him?"

            Akane squirmed. "Do you?" she retorted.

            Ryouga sighed and looked away. "If she could love me…" he trailed off.

            Akane nodded and let out a deep sigh. She should have known better than to press for his true feelings in something as awkward as this. It was kind of funny too, since the episode with the koi rod had put Ryouga into the rival category with Ukyo and Shampoo. The Kunos had never counted in her mind, but it had been on the back of her mind that Ryouga was a potential challenger for Ranma's heart, however much of a long shot that was. Taking a deep breath, she finally made her point, "The best hope she has, really, is if she does love you, Ryouga. That might be the only thing that would allow her to be at peace with being a girl for the rest of her life. With a boy Ranma around, she has no chance of getting that back."

            "What!?"

            "Ryouga," Akane turned back to look at him. "I heard what being Ranko means to Ranma. All three of them. But it'll never work if it's forced on her. She has to want it. She'll never be Ranko and want to be a girl. She needs to be a girl and want to be Ranko," Akane explained in perfect feminine logic. 

            "I don't get it."

            "You don't have to understand, Ryouga," she rolled her eyes. "Just believe me, you are the best chance she has of figuring it out for herself." 

            "What do I have to do?"

            "Just… follow your heart. Ask her out on a date," Akane suggested. 

            Ryouga sighed and rolled over on his pallet. If only Akane had realized how difficult that simple suggestion was for him to follow. He had been fretting about it all night, his mind arguing for and against it. He wanted to give it a shot, but he did not think he could take the rejection and ridicule if it all exploded in his face. Worse, whenever he managed to resolve the will to ask, images of Akane and Akari would spring up to torment him. It was torture, because with those two girls, he could never quite separate their affections for him from his alter ego, the little black piglet, but he knew that Copy-chan had feelings for him as a man. Those feelings might still exist in Ranko, and the other two as well, but he knew that appealing to those feelings might be seen as an unforgivable insult. After long hours of wrestling with it, he finally could not stand it. He rose from his sleeping bag and approached Ranma. 

            Knowing perfectly well how hard it was to wake his rival, he advanced as calmly as possible, dragging the blanket off his sleeping form and aimed a kick for the open window. After punting the sleeping boy out the window, he jumped out after him, careful to avoid the pond below. Fortunately, he arrived in the wake of the splash heralding Ranma's awakening, and did not get soaked on landing. 

            "Wha- Who- Where!?" the shocked and soaking boy babbled as he reared up gasping for breath. His eyes narrowed as he spotted Ryouga standing on the grass. He automatically sent a wave crashing toward his rival, shouting, "What the hell did you do that for, P-chan!?"

            "Snort! Bweeee!" came the indignant response. 

            "Oh, guess I should heat up some water if you're gonna actually answer that, huh?" he grinned as he dragged himself out of the water and collected Ryouga's clothing. Looking into the pig's eyes, he asked, "You did have a reason for waking me up, right?"

            Ryouga nodded.

            Ranma sighed. "Alright. Come on, I'll take you in to the furo. Whatever you wanna talk about, we can do it while we both get warm." Ranma smirked as he picked up his friend and carried him into the house. Kasumi poked her head out of the kitchen and offered a cheerful good morning as they passed. "Hey, Kasumi. Is the bath free?"

            "You're the first one up, Ranma-kun. I've already run the bath, but you can go ahead of me," she offered. Ranma noticed that the eldest daughter was in her bathrobe, and realized how early in her morning routine they had intruded. 

            "I'm sorry, Kasumi. I'll try to be quick, so I don't mess up your morning," he promised. She just smiled and returned to the kitchen. As he carried P-chan into the washroom, he could hear the water running in the bath. Apparently Kasumi had just wandered out for a moment while the tub filled. He quickly stripped out of his wet clothes and entered the bathroom. He closed the tap, seeing the tub was about full, and proceeded to wash down before joining P-chan in the bath. Or rather, Ryouga, since the boy appeared as soon as the piglet hit the water.

            "Sorry about the rude awakening, Ranma," Ryouga began, leaning back and relaxing in the heat. "I just didn't know a quicker way to wake you up."

            "I'm used to it. So, what's so important it couldn't wait?"

            "I need to ask you something."

            "You wanna ask me for advice?" Ranma paused in shock.

            "I'd rather get beaten up by you than Ranko," Ryouga huffed. 

            Ranma's eyes narrowed. "I don't think I like the sound of that."

            "Well, it's not entirely my idea," Ryouga explained, relating Akane's argument, without specifying her part in it. "She isn't Copy-chan, anymore than you are Copy-kun, but she is the one looking at being a girl for the rest of her life. The person who suggested that I try dating her thinks it's the best way for me to help. I think it's a good way to get myself killed."

            "You're not entirely wrong, Ryouga," Ranma frowned. He finished scrubbing down and rinsed himself off. He remembered the advice "he" had given "Copy-kun" and forced himself to think carefully. After joining Ryouga in the furo, he continued. "Ranma-chan… Kami, it's odd having to refer to another version of myself… She claims that the curse allowed me to develop a female identity. That you and that damned koi rod actually helped it happen. I'm not comfortable with it, but I can find it in myself." Ranma pushed through the water to put as much distance between himself and the lost boy. "When it was you and Copy-chan, I admit that I thought you might be good for her, and she for you. Ranko's a different story though. As Ranko, you're like sort of a friend, sort of a jerk, that has unexpectedly become more than that."

            Ryouga bowed his head. 

            "She feels things for you she's not sure she wants to," Ranma confided, striving to put some mental and emotional distance between himself and Ranko. "I suppose the problem is that what she feels for you is just wrong, if she thinks like a guy, and she's afraid it'll make her think like a girl."

            "But she is a girl," Ryouga protested softly.

            "Not by choice," Ranma insisted. He let the silence engulf them for a while, as he contemplated Cologne's revelation. In another life, he was a girl. That was certain now. That girl had died at about the same age he had been cursed, so it was sort of like the two lives had blended together in the last year, give or take a couple of months. At least if he tried to balance the influence of the two lives. He didn't remember the other life, but he realized that if he did, it would complement every experience he had as a guy, making it impossible to assert one gender over the other on that basis. After hearing a brief synopsis of that life, the walls between lives seemed perilously thin suddenly. He sighed, "I thought I'd never have to worry about this again. It's gotta be worse for her."

            Ryouga nodded. 

            "To be honest, I think I agree with whoever put you up to this," Ranma admitted, shifting uncomfortably. "It's not like I never had to consider living as a girl. Because of my parents, it wasn't easy to think about, but the truth is, if I had to live as a girl, I'd rather just be a girl than cling to my masculinity. At least then I could actually live a somewhat normal life. It's just that a girl's life kinda sucks compared to a guy's. I don't like being second to anyone."

            "Even as a girl, I can't see you being subordinate to anyone," Ryouga agreed, looking up. Taking a deep breath, he dared, "Does that mean you think I should ask her?"

            Ranma studied him intently for a moment, sternly. "Better you ask her, and date her, than moon over her like Akane. The fact that you're talkin' to me about it says you're serious enough. Don't be a Kuno, though. If you keep chasing other girls, she's gonna end up serving your carcass for dinner, P-chan," he warned pointedly. 

            "I can't control how I feel about Akane and Akari," Ryouga frowned. "If I thought they had any serious feelings for me as a man, a human being, it would be hard to ignore them. I don't see how it's much different from all the people you're involved with, Ranma. I'm hardly the only guy in Ranko's life. I suppose I'll be as serious about it as she is, and I can't promise more than that."

            Ranma thought about all the guys he had become involved with as a girl. No real serious relationships, but there had been more than one "engagement" and Kuno was not the only man to try and seduce him. "It's up to you, man. You can ignore my advice if you want. If you're serious about this, though, I'll talk to her and set it up. Spare you the agony of trying to ask her in person, since you're so pathetic under stress," Ranma grinned impishly.

            To his surprise, Ryouga actually felt relieved. "Thanks Ranma! That's a load off my mind! I didn't think you'd be such a good sport about this!" Ranma gaped at him, sweat not caused by the heat rolling down the side of his face. 

Ranma-chan sighed as the girl sharing her futon moaned softly and snuggled a little deeper into her side. The sun streaming directly into the room was much more intense than the gentle illumination that would infiltrate the guest room across the hall. Akane, in her bed, was sheltered from the glare, and Ranko had wiggled into the shade, pushing her twin's face directly into the pool of light. The sudden wash of light did not belong in the dark, gloomy nightmare she had snapped out of. From the sound of things, Ranko's dreams were not much better, and had taken a turn for the worse. Blinking the sleep from her eyes, Ranma-chan glanced at the clock. Grimacing, she sat up and stretched, hoping that the few stray hours of sleep would suffice for the day. She had a lot of work ahead of her, and staying up half the night talking to her twin about Cologne's revelation had probably been a bad idea. It had certainly provoked the horrors locked away in Fa Shen's memory. 

            Looking down at herself, she sighed. It figured this form would come with extra baggage. As if life as Ranma had not been enough to deal with. What seemed more disturbing was that it should suddenly confront her when circumstances threatened to strip her... his identity away from him. Ranma-chan scrabbled to collect her wits, holding onto the certainty that was Ranma. She and Ranko had both taken refuge in that, while discussing the implications of this previous life. It had been essential, given what they could fathom from the memories they had already tapped into. 

            Fa Shen had been the daughter of Pa Shen, who had taken refuge among the amazons after escaping from the Musk. Before that, it was safe to assume that Pa Shen had been some exotic animal, chosen and cursed by the Musk to bear sons with the gifts inherent to her native species. One of whom, Lo Shen, had conspired to sacrifice Fa Shen to replace the spring of drowned woman the amazons had destroyed after it had been used by enemies of their tribe to infiltrate and destroy them from within. Enemies who were allied with the Musk, attempting to abduct Pa Shen and return her to her original captors. Fa Shen had died seething with hatred for her sibling. A hatred that Ranma and Ranko could feel turning upon the image of Ranma, who so closely resembled the brother who condemned her. That venom was nothing compared to the wrath Fa Shen held for the man who had ultimately murdered her. 

            Ranma-chan shivered as her mind flashed on the dreams of the dragon-born prince of the Musk and his attempts to dominate Fa Shen, and exploit the laws of her tribe. As a martial artist, her skill compared favorably to that of Shampoo, but her mastery of chi manipulation and shiatsu surpassed that of the young prince who pursued her. Ranma-chan wondered what sort of creature had given Fa Shen a grasp of chi to rival the abilities of a dragon halfling. Whatever it had been, it accounted for the prince's unrelenting interest in her. Probably some other breed of dragon, given the emphasis of the ruling houses of the Musk. What could a dragon desire more?

            Unfortunately for that prince, Fa Shen had been a proud amazon and a prodigy to boot. Faced with the contempt the Musk held for females, she would have rather died than be defeated by him, and ultimately she had. In retrospect, this did not make Ranma-chan feel any warmer toward this unexpected heritage. It did, however, force her and Ranko to sit up wondering how this heritage would affect their present situation with Cologne, Shampoo and the rest of their tribe. It did not take a genius to guess that they would do anything to bring the resurrected heroine back into the fold. They had asked themselves if this third identity was a solution to their present problem, or if it just complicated the situation worse. Suppose Cologne did want Fa Shen back. Would she be satisfied with a Fa Shen that turned into a boy? Did the logic that stated Ranko should be one hundred percent female also apply to the drowned girl? For that matter, would either of them being Ranko result in Fa Shen's personality awakening and taking over? Would they ultimately become twin fusions of Ranma and Fa Shen, and never truly be either? What would it do to Ranma if he too awakened fully to that past life?

            The questions had no sure answers. At the very least, thinking about it only suggested that Fa Shen's hatred for her brother might account for why she had not surfaced sooner. That door had waited to open until Ranma's memory was locked away in Copy-chan. If she had not gone back into the mirror, Copy-chan would probably have become Fa Shen entirely. 

            Ranma-chan sighed. The other thing they had figured out from their brief recapitulations was that Fa Shen would be as quick to reject masculinity as Ranma had been to deny femininity. Having only begun to overcome the self-loathing that came with the curse, Ranma-chan did not relish the thought of facing it again as Fa Shen. Given the uncertainty of her identity at this point, however, she was the most likely to inherit that identity. It gave her a sudden appreciation of Ranko's lament about not having any choice in who she would be. Remembering how easily Ranko had slipped into Fa Shen's perspective at Cologne's prompting, Ranma-chan suspected she might not even realize it was happening until it was too late. She did not know if she should be afraid, but she was certainly distressed by the whole idea. Enough that she felt like a coward when the impulse to retreat from it into male form had hit her last night. Genma had intercepted her search for hot water and marched her back to bed, however, reminding her sternly that she was not welcome in the guest room and she could not sleep in Akane's room as a boy. 

            "Damn him," she muttered. "He wants me to become someone else, so Ranma can take my place!" Not for the first time she considered challenging her other duplicate for the right to be Ranma, even if it would force him to actively commit to the engagement to Akane. That no longer seemed like the biggest problem in her life. If anything, it would be better for Akane, since her condition helped delay the inevitable. Once it was safe to confront Nodoka, Genma and Soun would certainly rush the wedding. As a matter of honor, Ranma and Akane would wed if pressed, but it would be a mere formality. As it was, it was uncertain if they were even friends, and Ranma-chan was not sure the Akane cared even that much. At best, she seemed to tolerate her. That fear had kept Ranma-chan from examining her own feelings about the tomboy too closely. There was something about Akane she loved, but it was elusive and the girl certainly did not share it openly with Ranma-chan. Her feelings for Akane were not that different from the feelings she had for Ryouga, actually. Those feelings for Akane had offered the best reinforcement for her masculinity, outside of her desire to make her mother proud of her son. Akane deserved a real man. It had tortured Ranma to be anything less than that. In all honesty, her biggest fear with regard to her relationship with Akane was that she was not man enough for her. "Damn," she muttered again. The current Ranma would not have that problem now. What kind of man would she be if she threatened to take that away from Akane? "I guess I can't challenge him, like I did Ryu Kumon."

            Ranko blinked and opened her eyes suddenly. The muttered comments, and the light that had angled into her face, had roused her. "You weren't seriously thinking of challenging him for your name, were you?" she asked in surprise. 

            "Wouldn't you if you had a chance?"

            "Mmmm… Good point," she grumbled. Being awake, she stretched and got up. There were piles of books waiting for them downstairs, and since Happosai had not provided an immediate solution they still had to dredge through them. They had already filled a note pad with ideas of things to try, and had sketched out a regimen to train the abilities they would require to apply the medical techniques. As she had slept, the back of her mind had also gone to work on the problem, and insisted there was a simple solution, if she could just see the critical element. Yawning, she headed out the door. "Come on," she called softly. "We should get back to work."

            "I think I need a bath first," Ranma-chan practically yowled as she was infected by her twin's yawn. 

            "Good idea," the other smiled lazily, following her down the stairs. They were both half asleep as they entered the washroom and stripped down. The reminder that itched in the back of their brains did not penetrate the haze as they sat down on wash stools and scrubbed down. It was not until they entered the furo together that they realized what they had done. Ranko took one look at the boy sitting in shock across from her and burst out laughing.

            "I can't believe we forgot!" she gasped, as she got control over herself. Ranma-kun was studying her in the same curious way he had examined Copy-chan, the first time he had dragged her into the furo. "So, how long are you going to keep staring?"

            Ranma-kun blushed and looked away. "Sorry, it just blows my mind to see my girl form sitting in hot water. It's like I don't really see you until then. Even after a week and a half, I'm not used to looking at myself, my girl half, through a guy's eyes."

            Ranko studied his turned face thoughtfully. She quickly turned her head as she realized that the same phenomenon applied to looking at her male half through female eyes. When it was Copy-kun, or rather when she was Copy-chan, she had looked on him as a potential mate. In spite of remembering who she was, she had fallen into the same appreciative gaze herself, as he transformed. Her mind flashed on the memory, as Ranma, of seeing Copy-chan that first time, and the weird feeling he got from looking at her. At himself, he had actually thought. Having probed into the mysteries of sex, as Copy-chan, she suddenly understood the feelings he had felt. The instinctive, sexual curiosity. The intellectual revulsion as he rejected the notion that formed. "I'm always going to remember being a guy," she mourned softly. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to look at a guy the way I looked at you."

            "Well," he sighed, "at least we both know that isn't Fa Shen talking."

            She sighed. That was true. If she looked at him through Fa Shen's eyes, she probably be trying to kill him right now. "We're going to have to do something about that. I've got enough reason to hate Ranma as it is. I don't need her help becoming psychotic about it."

            "I think we'd have to be Fa Shen to teach her the difference between Ranma and Lo Shen," Ranma-kun shifted, looking down into the water, but facing her. "I'm not sure we can go there and get back, though."

            She matched him, though she had to focus hard on her toes to avoid seeing him too clearly through the water. She reminded herself that, being the same person, there was no shame in sharing a bath. "It's not a big step for me," she responded once her thoughts were composed. "I mean, I could probably become her if I just used her name for a while. Her personality is just like mine."

            "You mean, how you've adapted to your condition," he corrected. The dead amazon's feelings about males, as prospective partners, was eerily similar to how Ranma-kun felt when female. There was a physical magnetism, but a kind of abhorrence about submitting to it. Apart from that, she was not that much different from Ranma, thanks to her heritage. She'd be quite comfortable in Ranko's place. "That doesn't mean you have to be her."

            "It's you or me, buddy," she replied listlessly. 

            "I am sure she'd be thrilled at our enthusiasm," he quipped.


	18. Coming to a Crossroads

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Eighteen: Coming to a Crossroads

An oddity of the human psyche lends the hour of awakening an eternal quality. In that critical period, a person could easily find her mind displaced in time by days, months or years. Akane was hardly immune to this phenomenon, rising naturally from troubled slumber in which the events of the past two weeks were revisited and filed with great relief under the header of dreams. Another oddity of the human psyche she unwittingly demonstrated, was the capacity to overlook inconvenient reminders of an unpleasant reality, such as the pillows, futon and comforter testifying to the fact that Ranma-chan and Ranko had slept in her room with her. Blinking and yawning, carrying her bath supplies, she shuffled blindly past that obstacle and made her way down stairs. She had gotten into the habit of hurrying downstairs to claim the bath while Ranma sparred with his father. Passing by the Tea Room, glimpsing Ranma and Ryouga conversing in muted voices as Kasumi poured tea, and judging it too early for Nabiki, Genma (in the absence of a sparring session), or her father to be awake, she concluded it was perfectly safe to enter the bath, ignoring the occupied sign hanging in the washroom. Altogether, her state of denial lasted about eight minutes. 

            For one whole minute, which Ranma-kun and Ranko spent frozen in apprehension, Akane struggled to catch up with events sufficiently to utter the appropriate phrases of outrage inspired by the boy and girl sharing the furo. 

            When the minute elapsed, and no coherent noise escaped Akane, Ranko cleared her throat and blushed, "If you're going to just stand there, you might wanna put on a robe or something."

            Akane eeped, stepped back and slammed the shoji closed. A second later, the screen shot open and she stormed in wearing an oversized t-shirt. "What the hell are you two doing in the bath together!?" she demanded, fuming in outrage and embarrassment, while her eyes darted around for an implement of destruction.

            Ranma-kun, who had managed to snap his eyes shut in the first few seconds of the show, carefully remained silent, sinking a little deeper into the water. 

            "Do you want an answer before or after you pound us into oblivion?"

            Akane finally picked up the sprayer and aimed it at the boy. While not being deliberately malicious, it had recently been filed in her mind as a punitive weapon suitable for use in this situation. The remembered trauma of experiencing the triggers to the curse simultaneously caused both Ranma-kun and Ranko to bound clear of the furo instantly. The sudden movement caused Akane to clench her fist and flinch back from the wave of hot water, "Get back! Perverts!" In a flash, in more than once sense, everyone in the room was female and soaked. For Ranko, that was of course the status quo. Thus, she was the first to respond again. 

            "Are you quite through?" she demanded, glaring into the cold spray. Akane dropped the hose and opened her mouth, but Ranko cut her off. "I don't wanna hear it, Akane. The answer to your question is, bathing. If you think there's anything more to it, that's your problem. If you'd paid attention to the sign in the washroom, it wouldn't even be that. As for what you just tried to do," she narrowed her eyes to slits, "I hope you never experience the kind of pain you just threatened to hand out!"

            Akane puffed up in indignation and began to roar, "Ranma…!"

            "Ranko!!!" the girl screamed back, drowning her out. "Didn't you see me!? I'm in hot water up to my eyeballs and you're goin' ballistic cuz SHE," her finger snapped out to point in Ranma-chan's direction, "forgot she could still become a guy, even though she can no longer be him anymore!" Ranma-chan cringed at that and turned away from the confrontation. Until Ranko shouted it, she would not have admitted to herself that she had been taking refuge in her recently discovered feminine psyche to dull the pain of losing her real identity. Now that it was spoken, she suddenly could not meet Akane's eyes. Ranko was not done, however. "If you're not gonna even bother tryin' to understand what you're jumpin' into, maybe you oughta learn to stop rushin' blindly into the middle of everything!"

            Akane recoiled from the combined outbursts as though they were an onslaught of physical blows. She spun and fled through the open door, leaving a mist of tears to fall in a line behind her. 

            As Ranma-chan turned around, Ranko folded to the tiles and burst into tears herself. Ranma-chan bit her lip, catching a rebuke at the last second. Ranko was well aware that she had been too harsh. Feeling how fragile her own emotions seemed, she slumped down beside her twin and held onto her somewhat helplessly. It was frightening. The changes they were going through were taking their toll. When Soun stormed down stairs and into the bathroom, driven from his bed by the sound of Akane slamming into her room and exploding into loud wails of grief, he took one look at the naked girls struggling to master their shattered feelings and backed out without a peep. When Ranko recovered, the two girls got dressed and timidly slipped up to the breakfast table. Sitting in his usual spot, Soun was staring into his tea looking shell shocked. Neither of the girls could meet the eyes of Ranma and Ryouga as they waited for the morning meal to appear. 

            Ranma-chan sighed after a moment, thankful of one thing. Akane's intrusion had shaken both of them out of their thoughts about Fa Shen. The realization got her mind back on that track, but hopefully Ranko would not join her in that contemplation. Ranko had enough to deal with. The prospect of becoming a stranger to herself, by embracing a long dead expression of herself, was too much to add to her problems. It made more sense for Ranma-chan to take on that challenge. She had the least to lose under the present circumstances. Becoming someone else was beginning to look like an ideal way out of this absurd situation. Unfortunately, she was not the only one "looking out" for Ranko. 

            Ranma cleared his throat to get their attention. "Ranko," he waited for her to meet his eyes. "Could I speak to you alone for a moment?" He gestured for Ranma-chan to stay out of it when she went to open her mouth. Ranko took a deep breath and nodded. "Come on. Let's go out to the dojo."

            Ranko rose stiffly to her feet and followed him out of the house, expecting to hear some lecture or demand for her to explain her verbal assault on Akane. To her surprise, he began to fidget and blush once they were alone.

            "Well? What did you wanna talk about?"

            "I need to ask you some things," he began, trying to find a way to approach his proposal. "I guess the first thing is, I've had to face what's ahead of you, but I'm not really sure how you feel right now. Are you okay with bein' Ranko? I mean, taking the identity, bein' a girl for real… for Mom?"

            Ranko arched back slightly in surprise, wondering what he was really after, to start with a question like that. "That was the idea, wasn't it?" she retorted easily, buying herself time to think while he scowled at her and tried to explain what he was asking. While he reiterated some of the things that had been said the previous couple of days, she composed her thoughts. 

            "…So it's not like I think you have'ta," he was concluding, "I just wanna know if you're gonna give it a try or if you plan to go to China as soon as we have this other problem straightened out."

            "I am not doin' as good as, um, Ranma-chan, at tryin' a female perspective," she confessed, looking down. "I mean, she figured out how to do it, but I've been afraid to really try. She can be a guy, but all I can do is hold onto the memory of it. I'm afraid if I let go of that, I won't ever wanna go back to bein' me, exactly." Looking up she shrugged and shook her head, "No, not just that. I guess what I'm really afraid of is that I won't become Ranko in truth, but that I'll slide all the way until I become HER," she emphasized, trusting him to know who she meant. 

            He looked at her seriously, as he allowed the fear to unfold for himself. He had tried not to think about Cologne's revelation. The idea that he was a girl before ever being born as a guy was disturbing. Worse, she had been an amazon. Even in his sleep, his mind had retreated from nightmares that made him feel like he hated himself. Instead of following that topic, he addressed her previous concern. "So you really wanna be a guy again?" He knew he would, in her place. Just because he had been female—even a girl, in another life—and might be able to be one again, he did not particularly want to. Not if he could help it. 

            Ranko shrugged. "I'm not so sure it's as important, if I can't really be me," she stressed. Even if she could somehow manage it, and become Ranma's "twin brother", it would not be the same as being Ranma. It would be easier to hold onto her identity as Ranko, if she could be sure that was as far as she would slip. "If I could figure out how Mom would feel about having another son, I wouldn't feel like I was giving up everything just to be a guy. If I didn't know how much she wants a daughter…" she trailed off. It need not be said again that she was the perfect choice to assume that responsibility. Shaking her head, she crossed her arms and stared at him, "I don't have an easy answer. Why did you want to know?"

            "Well," he began, scratching the back of his head, "if you are serious about bein' Ranko, or at least figuring out if you can, I have a… an idea, I guess. A proposal."

            Her eyes widened for a moment, then narrowed. "What do you mean?"

            "Ryouga wants to ask you out," Ranma sighed. 

            "I'm not sure that's a good idea right now," she frowned, looking away.

            "I'm not sure it's a good idea to avoid it," he retorted gently. "I know the feelings are there. I feel it, but I can't do anything about it. Weird as it is, I feel about the same for Ryouga as I do Akane. We might all prefer to be guys, but only one of us can be with her. If there were no one else, that would be a real problem. Also, it would not be as complicated with Ryouga. There's no one else pressuring you into it, and he's bein' more open about his feelings than Akane. At least you have some clue if anything will ever come of it, while I'm never sure about her," he pointed out. 

            "But, this is Ryouga, man!"

            "Yeah. I know, as a guy the idea is kinda sickening, but as a girl…" he shrugged. "As a girl there's nothing wrong with it. You could do a lot worse than Ryouga, and he needs someone who can understand and respect him."

            "I just can't believe he'd even ask," she shuddered, feeling a bit angry that he had not respected her request for time. 

            "It wasn't his idea," Ranma responded. He explained how Ryouga approached him, and how he had been prompted to act as a way of helping Ranko. "The whole idea is to help you. It's enough just to ask, really, but he's ready to follow through, all the way, if that's what you want. If that's what you need. I think he's as scared of the idea as you."

            "But you came to me with this," she pointed out. "You think I should do this. I don't think you'd have done that if you hadn't asked yourself first."

            He sighed and gave a slight nod. 

            "So you already know what I'll say." 

            He nodded. After staring into each other's eyes in silence for a moment, he turned away, "I'll tell him it's okay to ask."

            Ranko watched him return to the house. She slowly sank down to sit on her heels. It was both horrifying, and a relief, to find herself at this crossroad. The possibility had haunted her since the first time she had explored her cursed form. The silent friction of her hands on her own skin had whispered to her that this body had a purpose of its own, and a day would inevitably come when it would find a way to reveal itself to her. A day when something would compel her to accept that the change was more than skin deep. All that was required was for her to be put into a perfectly plausible position, and recognize that it applied to her. Ryouga was on his way out to ask a girl on a date. When he appeared in the door, looking nervous and determined, she could not deny that she was that girl. Trying not to look as though she stared death in the face, she turned her eyes up to meet his. 

Ranma-chan had studied Ryouga for several long moments, when her reflections departed, before excusing herself from the breakfast table. She had a dreadful suspicion of what Ranma and Ranko were discussing and had not been prepared for the stab accompanying the realization that Ranma and Ryouga had not even considered her in their scheme. The sensation of doors closing to her was becoming painfully palpable. Ironically, she could guess what had brought this on, and could see that Ranko needed it more than she. She had never wanted to fight more than she did for the identity of Ranma, and yet she had forced herself to admit that it was a futile effort from the beginning. That realization had allowed her to embrace the identity she lost to Ranko even before Ranko realized it for herself. Along with the man who fell in love with that identity. It was this clarity that allowed her to understand what had really happened in the bathroom only moments ago. She wished she could break away from Akane as well, but instead she found herself at the girl's door hoping to offer in friendship what she was never able to offer as a fiancé. 

            Maybe one had to become a true outcast to comprehend the value of unconditional love. Or maybe what she felt was part of the process of coming undone, a gift realized in the same breath as the onset of death. Tightening her fist, she promised, "Curse be damned. I will not die. I might lose everything I know and love, but I'll find a way to survive!"

            "Ranma?" came a muffled voice from the other side of the door. The faint sobbing had stopped. 

            "A friend," Ranma-chan answered, sighing. 

            A moment later, the door opened. Akane looked at her with horribly swollen, red eyes and a damp face. "What do you want?" she growled in pain.

            "I…" she looked away. She originally intended to apologize for Ranko and explain the girl's attack, but suddenly wanted to be rid of this sense of collective responsibility. The truth was, she was in pain, and misery loved company. Rather than try to explain, she just relaxed the mask she had built to maintain a masculine façade against the emotional nature of her current form. Without warning, her eyes filled up with tears and she breathed, "A friend."

            Akane gave her an odd look, unable to believe the cascade of tears streaming from Ranma-chan's eyes. She could not help but remember the conversation she had with Ranma on the way to Tofu's the morning before. Faced with the prospect of losing his identity to the reflections, he had expressed the hope of claiming the friendship she had promised Ranma-chan in their first meeting. Taking a breath, she pushed aside her own pain and asked gently, "What happened?"

            Ranma-chan sighed and shrugged. "Ranko's claiming the other half," she explained simply. She had not witnessed it, but she felt in her bones that it was happening. Ryouga's nervous and eager air had betrayed enough for her to know what Ranma would ask Ranko, and she needed no help figuring out what her answer would be. Ultimately, the decision was based on her honor, so there was only one choice for the girl to make. 

            Akane considered the response and pulled Ranma-chan into her room. Closing the door, she acted on impulse and hugged the other girl. At the moment, that's what she was. Ranma-chan allowed herself to be consumed by silent, racking sobs. Even as she cried, she found herself amazed by the emotional release. What was more surprising, when the fit finally ended some time later, was the strange clarity that followed. Akane had allowed her own tears to play out in the embrace, recognizing that Ranma-chan was there as much to unburden Akane's grief as her own. While they slipped apart and moved in silence to the bed, Ranma-chan pondered her current state of mind. By dropping her guard completely, she had finally admitted the depth of her loss. And it was devastating. There were suddenly no maps, no logic, to the terrain of her life. The assumptions that went with all she had been, had been stripped away as well. All she was left with was her determination to survive, and a sudden sense that she had nothing left to lose, and everything to gain by trying. 

            "Are you okay?" Akane finally ventured.

            "I can't remember the last time I cried like that," she responded softly, allowing the wonder of it to enter her voice. "I had no idea it could help so much to just let it all out. I mean, nothing's changed. My life is still torn to hell, but it's like the fight is over. I'm a complete mess, but there's nothing to stop me from pickin' up the pieces now."

            "You said Ranko was claiming the other half," Akane reminded. "What exactly does that mean? Why did that make you fall apart?"

            Ranma-chan winced. She had enough pride left that she did not like the way that sounded. Sighing she shook it off, "I did fall apart, didn't I?" she forced herself to admit. Taking a breath, she tried to answer the question. "It makes sense for her to be Ranko, but she… She was not ready to accept it. When she lashed out at you, she was finally accepting that she would not be Ranma ever again. Then Ranma…" she stopped and swallowed back a new surge of tears. "I don't know how to explain it. Ranma and Ryouga were waiting for us at the table. Ryouga was beside himself, and only got worse when Ranma took Ranko out to the dojo. I can guess what's up with Ryouga, and if Ranma's helping him, then I know what's going to happen. Ryouga's a problem I can only figure out as a girl, and that's what's gonna cause Ranko to claim that identity for real."

            "But you expected that, didn't you?"

            Ranma-chan sighed. "It's easy to figure out, but it's a lot harder to live with. I'm runnin' out of things to hold on to, and I'm not sure I'm gonna like what's left." Once again, the specter of Fa Shen rose up in her mind. She laughed a bit harshly, "I got used to the idea of bein' a girl. Maybe it won't be so hard to get used to bein' an entirely different person. I just wish I had a better idea of who she is." 

            "Fa Shen?"

            "Yeah."

            "Why would you have to become her?"

            "It's not a choice. That's just what's left when you take away the rest."

            "I can't imagine it."

            "Neither can I," she flopped onto her back. "That's the problem."

Ranma studied the girls across from him. Ranma-chan had slipped upstairs to Akane's room while he was out in the dojo talking to Ranko, and from the looks of her now, had been crying. It was unreal. When she had come downstairs, after Kasumi knocked on Akane's door to remind her sister to hurry if she wanted to bathe before breakfast, the cursed teen had made no effort to disguise the evidence of her unmanly indulgence. Ranko had entered ahead of Ryouga, before Ranma could comment, and had gone instantly to her side. They had spoken in hushed voices in the hall for a bit before returning to the table, where Ryouga distracted Ranma from the questions, or insults, he had been considering. Perhaps that was a good thing, Ranma considered, but it was beginning to bother him how they were distancing themselves from him. Oh, it was not hard to figure out why they were withdrawing, but it disturbed him to see "himself" retreating into the female guise he had hated as often as not. 

            Ranma and Ryouga had changed the topic of their discussion once they noticed the violent spasm from Ranma-chan, at hearing mention of the upcoming date with Ranko. They had observed the quick exchange between Ranma-chan and Ranko, as the cursed girl probed the other girl's feelings about the matter, and the decision underlying it. After an awkward hug, and words of mutual support, the two had retreated into silent contemplation of the what this decision might lead them to become. Ranma could practically taste the bitter thoughts stewing in both of them. It was too painful to watch this happening to, well, himself, but neither could he turn away. It was his fault they were forced to face these challenges. His fault they confronted a future as girls. 

            Genma joined Soun at the table, and Nabiki sauntered in as Akane raced out of the bathroom. Kasumi began setting out the breakfast dishes, and frowned at the subdued faces circling the table. Hoping to break the silence, she smiled and addressed a cheerful question in the direction of the twin girls, "So, Ranko-chan, is it true you are going on a date with Ryouga-kun?"

            Ranma-chan stiffened but contained her reaction better this time. Ranko blushed and flicked a look at Ryouga before meeting Kasumi's smile. "Ah, yeah. Mom's been buggin' me to try dating. If I'm really gonna be Ranko—a girl she would want as her daughter—it's about time I started tryin' her suggestions."

            "Well," Kasumi's smile grew a bit warmer, "I would be happy to help you get ready this afternoon. Just remember to excuse yourself from your studies a couple of hours ahead of the date, since this will be rather new to you!" Ranko's eyes widened at the suggestion. It had not occurred to her that a date implied getting dressed up for the occasion.

            "Oh, that's okay, Kasumi," Ryouga tried to intervene, catching the alarm on Ranko's face. "She doesn't need to get dressed up for me! I think she's pretty enough just the way she is. Really!"

            "Now, don't be silly, Ryouga," Kasumi giggled, waving him off. "A first date should be really special. You should both try and look your best and find something really special to do together."

            Genma had been looking back and forth, following the conversation. He had settled on Ranko with a stern and thoughtful expression. "Daughter," he intoned, trying the word out carefully and waiting to see how she reacted to it. When she simply sucked in her breath and snapped around to stare at him in shock, he continued, "I am well aware that you have teased Ryouga quite a bit in the past. I can hardly fault a young man for taking an interest in, ah, a girl with such healthy attributes." Genma actually blushed, rushing on, "Ahem. However, in light of what has passed between you, I am hesitant to give my blessings to this venture."

            "Geez, Pop," she scowled and looked down. "It's just a date. And it's not like I tried to trick him into it." 

            Genma considered that and turned instead to Ryouga, "So, it was your idea to date her?"

            "Well, not exactly," Ryouga blushed and looked at his breakfast. "It was my decision to ask her, but it was actually suggested by, um, someone else. I did talk to Ranma about it first, since I wasn't sure she would be interested."

            Genma ignored the other details at the moment to sustain the focus of his pursuit, "Who, if I may ask, actually suggested it?" There was obvious suspicion written over his face, as he leaned forward to intimidate Ryouga a little. There was a moment of silence as Ryouga bit his lip.

            "It was my idea, actually," Akane spoke up. She gave Ryouga a strange look, wondering why they boy had tried to keep it a secret. Clearing her throat, she explained her reasoning. "Being stuck in a female body, with Ranma's memories, it seemed to me that it would be kind of hard for her to really become Ranko, even if Auntie Saotome really wants a daughter. I thought it might help her to, um, try some things as a girl. I mean, if she can adjust to being a girl, being Ranko will be a lot easier for her," she outlined roughly. 

            Genma frowned and looked between Ranko and Ranma. "I'm not sure I understand," he admitted, still looking suspicious. 

            Ranma-chan suddenly spoke up, "It's girl training."

            Genma turned to stare at her. She refused to meet his eyes. "Explain," he commanded, leaning back and picking up his rice bowl. 

            Ranma-chan sighed. "There's a lot more to bein' a girl than just having a girl's body, Pops. If that wasn't true, I'd have really become a girl every time I changed. Yeah, I've used this form to mess with Ryouga a lot,"' she admitted, gesturing to herself, "and as a result, Ryouga started to develop some kind of feelings. When Copy-chan started chasin' him, those feelings became real. For him and for her. She kinda got absorbed by all of us when she returned to the mirror. Since she really was a girl, those feelings are sort of the key to becoming a girl." She looked up and fixed his gaze. "You suggested it, and she's the one who has to do it. Unless you wanna watch her go insane, you better let them do it," she warned him. 

            "And what do you plan to do?" Genma suddenly challenged.

            "What do you mean?"

            "Are you going to date him too, to see if you can be a girl, or are you going to remain a boy?"

            "I don't need to date him," she shrugged.

            Genma paused to consider what that implied. He had absorbed the details related by Cologne, about Ranma-chan's epiphany, about the struggle the cursed teen faced finding an aspect of identity to cling to for survival, about the previous incarnation as a woman, and spent the previous evening pondering them. "Isn't the alternative to being Ranko also being a girl?" he pressed. 

            Ranma-chan twitched. 

            "Don't you also need to consider this 'girl training' you mentioned?"

            "If I become Fa Shen," Ranma-chan declared cautiously, "it'll be sort of like how they became me. I'll just remember. She doesn't have any problems with bein' a girl. If anything, the problem will be dealing with turnin' into a boy."

            Genma's eyes narrowed at that. The idea of his son suddenly becoming a man hating amazon was a great deal more disturbing than the notion of him becoming a daughter. Perhaps this previous incarnation was not the answer to the problem he foresaw. Though he could not honestly support the possibility of this cure killing the cursed teen, her continued existence remained an obstacle to reuniting his son and wife. Adopting Ranko would not be a great difficulty, if the current assumptions were preserved, but one glimpse of the curse in action would reveal the connection between Ranma and Ranko. He had hoped that Ranma-chan would be pressured into embracing her femininity and thus allow him to present her to Nodoka as Ranko's twin sister. It sounded as if this Fa Shen person might welcome an encounter with the chisuiiton, but it did not sound like much—if anything—that was Ranma, would survive her emergence.

            Seeing the effect of this topic on those at the table, Nabiki decided it was time to change the subject. Turning to Akane she smirked, "Hey, Sis. Since this date thing was all your idea, why don't you grab Ranma and go along too. Make it a double date!"

            Akane whipped around to stare at her sister in horror, even as Soun and Genma leapt to their feet shouting their support. In a flash, they were standing behind Ranma and Akane, pushing them together and babbling about duty and the necessity of patching up past misunderstandings caused by the curse. "It will be a perfect chance for you to see the young man you are going to marry in a new light!" Soun was insisting. 

            "This is your chance, Boy! You don't have to worry about sudden changes ruining the mood! You can finally show Akane how manly you are!"

            "I don't believe this!" Akane whimpered. Glaring at Nabiki she growled, "I am going to get you for this, Sis!"

            Ranma cringed away from his father and moaned, "Why me!?"

            Ranma-chan grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him forward to respond from an inch away, "You have nothing to complain about!"

            While everyone at the table was in an uproar, two diminutive figures entered from outside. Happosai had left the previous evening to consult with Cologne on how best to deal with the trio's affliction. Seeing their return to the dojo had gone unnoticed, they absorbed the confusion and realized what was happening. Akane had unwittingly complicated the situation by arranging a date between Ryouga and Ranko. The impetuous girl had never considered this would leave her open to pressure from the fathers to make it a double date. 

            The two elders caught the attention of Ranma-chan, who slipped outside to hear what they had to say. The good news was that the two had come up with some ideas to help the trio. In fact, they pointed out, the prospect of the reflections departing in the afternoon on this latest lark could actually serve to test the techniques they intended to have the trio learn during the day. After discussing it, Ranma-chan led the way back inside and interrupted.

            "Hey!" she shouted to get everyone's attention. When they all stopped jabbering and looked at her, she continued, "Ranma, Akane, it would actually be a good idea if you two did go out tonight when Ranko and Ryouga do. Happosai and Cologne are gonna teach us something today we have to split up to test. I dunno if a double date is the best idea, so you might wanna plan on going to different places for this." She quickly outlined the Elders' suggestions. While she spoke, Cologne's attention gravitated to the other red-head.

            Ranko was stealing glances at Ryouga, her face clouded by uncertain thoughts and emotions. It was the look of a girl wondering what she was getting herself into, cautious of her heart. It brought a strange smile to the old woman's lips. She could not help but remember her observations about Copy-chan and the eternally lost boy. Apparently something might come of that after all. She slipped up to Ryouga and asked a few questions, and received an explanation detailing Akane's logic on how he could best help Ranko. Cologne took an optimistic view of the arrangement. 

            Cologne's secret interest in Ranma, now that she had established that the boy was a reincarnation of Fa Shen, forced her to create a situation that would allow her to continue probing. As an elder, she was compelled to exploit the situation to resurrect the ancient amazon heroine and take her back to china. While Ranma-chan was most liable, in her eyes, to adopt that identity, Ranko seemed a more likely choice for Fa Shen to make. If, as it seemed possible, Ranko won the heart of Ryouga, he would make an acceptable husband—with sufficient training to defeat the girl under the right circumstances. By taking the girl, Ranma-chan would have the option of becoming Nodoka's daughter Ranko. If she could not embrace that role, she might prefer to accompany the girl to China as Shampoo's husband, finally. Presenting her with the second option might be the only way to encourage her to consider the first.


	19. A Mother's Influence

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Nineteen: A Mother's Influence

Akane had only been too happy to slip away from the breakfast table and rush to school. It was hard to believe this was only the third day of the week. While chaos and confusion was pretty much normal around Ranma, the way things had changed, because of the Mirror of Broken Souls, made the normal mayhem seem like a walk in the park! It was certainly a far cry from Copy-chan's debut the week before. Once they had survived the first few days, she had calmed down and avoided trouble until the last moment. It was probably a good thing Akane had no clue what the girl had been plotting, for her return to the cursed mirror, or Akane might have tried to smother her in her sleep. Of course, if she had, Ranma would have died too, and it would have been her fault. Not that watching as Ranma retreated deeper and deeper into a female mindset, after being stripped of his identity, was much better. 

            Her mind kept flashing back to his… her visit to Akane's room that morning. How much had Ranma-chan changed to be able to break down and cry like that? Or, was it possible that the stranger she was seeing had always been hidden behind all that macho arrogance? Was she only now getting a true glimpse at the person she was promised to? Would she find the same person hiding inside the boy the engagement had shifted to? Questions like these were driving her insane, as she sat through classes and passed notes to Ukyo. 

            Poor Ukyo had been swamped with school work and the demands of her business, and had to rely on information from Akane to keep informed about what was happening to her best friend and romantic interest. Given the circumstances, Akane was simply ignoring the "rivalry" between them out of respect for the friendship that existed between the okonomiyaki chef and Ranma. However, there was too much to communicate in notes, so Akane mostly put her off and promised to tell everything at lunch. Of course, Ukyo was not the only one interested in the current events of Ranma's life. As the two talked over lunch, a small crowd formed around them to listen in. Akane had just explained the revelations of the previous afternoon and evening, to the astonishment of everyone in earshot. As they muttered in shock about the revelation of Ranma's former life, a few comments stood out above the rest.

            "Fashion!? Ranma used to be an amazon chick named Fashion?" Hiroshi uttered in loud disbelief. Akane rolled her eyes, as she realized she had not pronounced the name as precisely as Ranma-chan, Ranko and Cologne. 

            "And, her mother's name was Passion!?" Daisuke jeered.

            "What is it with amazons and those ridiculous names?" the two boys demanded at the same time. Akane, suffering from a few days of restraining her temper around Ranma, was quick to bounce up and unleash a stunning series of hammer blows to the two boys for "rudely" eaves dropping. Ukyo's eyes widened at the vehemence with which Akane vented her pent up frustrations, and shook her head in sympathy for the two boys who had volunteered to serve as Ranma's surrogates. Once they had been reduced to a pile of quivering limbs, Akane dropped back into her seat with a huff.

            "I don't believe those jerks!"

            "Er, maybe we should continue this somewhere else, ne, Akane?"

            "Sure, Ukyo," Akane took a calming breath and followed as Ukyo rose from the desk beside her. They slipped out of the classroom and made their way to the school grounds. Finding an isolated patch of lawn, they knelt to continue their lunch. Akane took a moment to recover the thread of their conversation. She had been relating what Ranma-chan had confided, about the memories of Fa Shen's life she had so far tapped. "So, anyway," she continued, as if they had not been interrupted, "that's as much as Ranma, er, the original, can remember so far. The more he remembers the more chance there is of him becoming her. Since Ranko's making an effort to be, well, Ranko, Ranma feels there's not much to stop him from becoming Fa Shen."

            "Why can't he just stay Ranma?" Ukyo demanded, still confused at this new turn of events. "I mean, yeah, it's kind of strange to think of having two of him around, but as long as he can be a guy... It would solve at least two problems."

            "What do you mean?" Akane looked at her, puzzled.

            "Well, it sounds like your fathers are pushing you to continue the engagement with the all-male Ranma…"

            "Like that's a solution!" Akane frowned.

            "…but you're not the only one he's promised to, remember?" Ukyo made a gesture at herself, hoping that she could bring this up without stirring up the old conflict. At the same time, she was annoyed that she had to point out her own claim to make her point. 

            Akane shifted into a scowl as she considered that. It struck her, now, that the presence of the other fiancées had not occurred to Ranma as a way to claim equal rights to his original identity. Did that mean he did not take those relationships seriously? She wondered how he would react to Ukyo's "suggestion". It did not take any imagination to picture how others might react to it, though. She fixed Ukyo with a measuring eye. "Are you serious, though? If you suggest that, you know Shampoo's going to jump on it too, not to mention Kodachi!"

            "Who says they haven't thought of it anyway," Ukyo shrugged and waved it off. "Besides, as long as Kodachi refuses to understand the curse, she will probably focus on your Ranma!" Ukyo smiled cheerfully, enjoying the assurance that Akane would have it no easier than she to assert her claim.

            "That's not funny," Akane growled.

            "Nor is challenging Shampoo for the real Ran-chan."

            "What? Are you saying my Ranma's a fake!?" Akane puffed up, and a hint of scarlet aura flickered in evidence of her temper.

            "I, uh, didn't mean it like that," Ukyo hastily protested. She tensed to leap to her defense, but Akane visibly calmed. Relieved to confront only the skeptical look on her rival's face, Ukyo expounded, "It's just, we all know which one is the original. Even if they all have the same memory, there are differences." Ukyo tried to emphasize the simple, obvious logic with a wry smile and "objective" expression.  

            "Not that you can tell by talking to any of them," Akane muttered, finally backing down and dismissing the perceived insult. As soon as she said it, she gave an odd frown. "Well, actually, the original has been acting, well..." she cut herself off, blushing in renewed confusion.

            "What?" Ukyo demanded, with her own suspicious look.

            "He's been acting like a girl," Akane hunched in on herself.

            "No way!" Ukyo reared up in horrified disbelief.

            "I think it's to keep him from fighting with the other one," Akane hastened to explain. She blushed again as she realized that it sounded like she was trying to convince herself of that. "But still..." she offered, searching for a way to share her observations of Ranma-chan, without betraying her confidence, as she was cut off.

            "No. This is getting out of hand," Ukyo declared sternly. She folded her arms and focused inward. She already knew about the pressure Genma had applied, and it was disturbing that the only new alternative also meant becoming a girl. She had hoped Ran-chan would turn to her, but he had been too busy trying to deal with blow after blow to seek her out. "I'm gonna have to do something. I can't just sit around while Ran-chan is cornered into becoming a girl!" she announced, clutching her fists in agitation. It was all she could do to not rush off to the Tendo Dojo that instant. The week she had taken away from school for her restaurant had swamped her with make up assignments and exams, and she could not afford to skip out on any more classes. Ran-chan was important to her, but if she lost her independence she would be forced to return to her family in disgrace, and that would not do him any good either.

Though it had seemed that there would be a repeat of the previous day's storm, the sky cleared gradually over the afternoon. A fitful shower after lunch, only long enough to force Ryouga to dart inside while Ranma-chan looked up at the sky in resignation, was the only manifestation of that threat. It was hardly enough to distract the Saotome triplets from their work. From the texts they had studied, they had gleaned a better sense of how shiatsu and acupuncture manipulated the natural flow of chi in the body, and how this was exploited in medicine. They had some experience with using pressure points in combat, and did not find it difficult to adjust to the precepts and techniques for healing. They were not terribly surprised to learn that the body itself was responsible for the actual healing caused by those techniques, which were simply ways of directing its resources. Their problem was a little more complicated, but with input from Cologne and Happosai, they were able to map and manipulate the unusual chi flows caused by their division. 

            From studying the trio, Cologne and Happosai had determined that, though they were physically whole and independent, they actually shared all their spiritual energy. While there seemed to be enough energy to sustain two of them independently, that energy circulated through all of them, connecting them at every vital point. It was easy to determine, now, why the condition worked as a cure. The essence recognized Nibunnoichi (the original, cursed Ranma) as both the source and center of their being. To support the reflections, Nibunnoichi had sacrificed her own boundaries, but the other two did not. The boundaries of the new Ranma and Ranko were intact, and served as a set of polarized boundaries for Nibunnoichi. She could draw energy away from them, because on a spiritual level she was inside their boundaries. With increased distance, Nibunnoichi, the focus, became more exposed and less able to contain her ki. This placed a greater demand on Ranma and Ranko's resources, as Nibunnoichi drew on them to sustain herself. If that drain became too great, Ranma and Ranko would reflexively cut the original off to preserve themselves. 

            The techniques they had spent the day developing would enable Nibunnoichi to restore her boundaries. Once she could contain her own ki, she could minimize the loss she suffered, as well as the drain on Ranma and Ranko. This did not solve the problem, since there was still only enough energy to properly sustain two incarnations, but it would remove the danger of sudden death for her. A variation on those techniques would allow Ranma and Ranko to "feed" energy to Nibunnoichi at a controlled rate, giving them better control over her demands. If they could find a way for the reflections to spare half the energy they needed, so that Nibunnoichi could harness her full, individual potential, she would be able to fully restore and "seal" her boundaries, fixing the problem for good. Unfortunately, this would deal Ranma and Ranko a staggering, potentially mortal blow, when the process abruptly severed them from the donated ki. If the shock did not kill them, they would fully recover in a couple of years. If they did not suffer any serious physical ailments in the interim. 

            The risks to Ranma and Ranko were essentially those that faced a normal victim of the mirror's curse, and the odds were that none of them had attempted to sever their links to stop the bleeding. At least, Cologne hoped not, since it would bode ill for Ranma and Ranko's chances if they tried it. For now, it was enough to devise an effective way to control the bleeding. If that bought them enough time, they could look for other solutions. It was still early in the afternoon when the two elders concluded that the trio had sufficiently mastered the control techniques. That left plenty of time for the reflections to prepare for their dates. Before concluding the training, Ranma and Ranko cornered Ranma-chan.

            "What are you looking at me like that for?" she demanded, cautiously.

            "Don't take this the wrong way…" Ranma began.

            "We know you are trying not to fight over this…" Ranko picked up.

            "What? Are you afraid I'm gonna interfere with your dates?" Ranma-chan interrupted, taking in the concern on their faces and trying to think from their perspectives. As they quickly blanked their faces, she knew that was exactly what they were worried about. "Why do you think I'd do that?"

            "Well, you do have a habit of butting in and messing with anyone who tries to date Akane," Ranma pointed out.

            "And you always mess with Ryouga," Ranko added.

            "And what you're talking about usually was because Ryouga was dating Akane!" Ranma-chan fit the pieces together. "So how do you figure I'm gonna mess with you when you are keeping them apart?"

            "Well," they said in unison, "because we know WHY you had to interfere in the first place." They exchanged grins and tried to get off the same track.

            Ranma-chan studied them. Why did she interfere between Akane and Ryouga in the past? Because, thinking as Ranma,  while he could not admit his feelings for Akane, he could not let anyone take her away from him. How did that apply here? She struggled for a second and realized that in this case, Ranma and Ranko were "Ryouga", her rivals for her unspoken affection, and Akane and Ryouga were both "Akane", the person she'd protect from said rivals. "Damn. Alright, I promise not to interfere. I'll go over and ask Dr. Tofu to observe while I practice the new techniques. I don't really need to know where you are or what you are doing to do that." She trotted off to inform Cologne and Happosai of her intentions, and they followed her to Tofu's clinic. 

            Ranma and Ranko made their way to the low table sprawled beside it, grateful for a moment to relax. A day of purely physical exertions would have barely left them winded, but what they had been doing required drawing, focusing and channeling chi for abnormally extended periods of time. A large lunch had helped to replenish them, but they still felt drained and raw. They idly discussed the question of what sort of training regimen would be required to build up mental or spiritual endurance comparable to their physical stamina. While they still tended toward identical thinking, they noted that talking to each other stimulated new ideas much quicker than internal dialogue. Before they could make a note to ask someone how the two of them together were smarter than one of them alone, Kasumi entered from the kitchen and began clucking at them.

            "Ranko-chan, you should start getting ready for your date," the eldest Tendo daughter reminded her, ushering her to her feet and propelling her out of the room into the hall leading to the bathroom. At the same time, a clamor from the genkan announced the return of the youngest Tendo from school. Her shouted greeting trailed after her as she raced down the hall toward Kasumi and Ranko. Kasumi smiled at her in greeting and resumed directing Ranko. "I prepared the bath... Akane-chan!" Kasumi cut herself off to cry out in dismay as Akane trampled over Ranko and shot into the washroom ahead of them.

            "I have to get ready too!" Akane yelled, slamming the door shut. 

            Another girl sauntered into the house in Akane's wake. Abandoned at the front door, she made her way into the Tea Room and confronted Ranma rising from the table. Ukyo smiled brilliantly and waved at him.

            "Hey! Ran-chan!"

            "Hi, Ukyo! Man it's great to see ya!" he greeted her with enthusiasm. 

            "Yeah, thought I'd come visit, since you're not at school."

            "Thanks, Ucchan!" he grinned. "If you can wait a minute, I'll be right back down and we can catch up, okay?" he waited for her nod and sprinted upstairs. From the commotion by the washroom, he knew a bath was out of the question, but he picked out one of his best outfits, changed quickly, and paused in the upstairs bathroom to wash his face and run a comb through his hair. With these cursory preparations for his date, he was free to spend the rest of his time talking to Ukyo. He bounced downstairs and into the room where he left his childhood friend scarcely more than a minute ago. 

            "You look sharp!" Ukyo stared appreciatively, impressed at what he managed in so little time. No doubt about it, life favored guys in some respects. Even with her preference in style and wardrobe, she spent a good deal of time on her appearance. It was not easy to look her best while giving the impression that she never gave her appearance a second thought. Just the bindings alone! She shook her head and offered him a questioning look, wondering what he had bothered to get dressed up for. Ranma caught the hopeful hint in her eye and sighed under his breath before responding.

            "Uh, yeah. I have to take Akane out," he explained dismissively.  

            "Ah. Well..." Ukyo tried not to let her disappointment show. It had been nice to think, for a moment, that he had rushed off to change for her. Before she could think of something else to say, she sensed someone walking up behind her. Turing around, she came face to face with a familiar red-head.

            "Hiya, Ucchan!" Ranko's face lit up at once, though she continued to rub the back of her head and try to smooth down her rumpled clothing. Ukyo stared at the wild hair and obvious foot prints of Ranko's recent trampling with wide eyes.  

            "What happened to you?" she brought her eyes back up to Ranko's.

            "Akane sorta trampled me to get into the bath first," Ranko shrugged and rolled her eyes. With a few deft swipes, she smoothed her hair and her outfit snapped back in order, totally erasing her disheveled appearance. 

            Ukyo blinked and did another once over, and could not spot a stain, tear, scratch, bruise or blemish. She must have been seeing things. Clothing did not repair itself like that. Right? Right. Ranma just spent a fortune replacing the exotic Chinese clothing he preferred, and which was rather hard to come by in Japan. Absolutely. It was totally ludicrous to believe that the cursed martial artist waved his hand or picked up the ruined set of clothes he stripped off the night before, and poof, they were good as new. 

            "You don't look like you need a bath," Ranma commented.

            "Tell that to Kasumi," Ranko suggested, giving him a wry smile. "At least, when she gets done lecturing Akane for cutting in front of me." 

            "She's really taking your date with Ryouga seriously!"

            "You're dating Ryouga!?" Ukyo found her voice, and it sounded puzzled.

            "Uh, yeah," Ranko blushed and rubbed nervously at the back of her head again. With a half shrug, she held out her hands to indicate helplessness. "Sorta got into a relationship when I wasn't looking," she offered, by way of explanation.

            "But... I thought there were no after affects from the koi rod."

            "Huh?" Ranko looked at Ukyo's perplexed face and tried to figure out the connection. She did not even know Ukyo had heard of that incident. She could not imagine Ryouga confiding it to her. She did not want to think Akane would have revealed that embarrassing ordeal, so it seemed best not to ask how Ukyo learned of it. Assume it was Nabiki, she thought. Shrugging, she replied, "Oh, there weren't. Well, mostly. I'm talking about what happened with Copy-chan. The idea is to use that to, um, help me get in touch with bein' a girl."

            "Why would you want that, Ran-chan!?"

            "I thought Akane was going to explain all this to you," Ranko frowned. 

            "I thought only Ranko had to be a girl," Ukyo clarified.

            "I am Ranko," she pointed out, with a narrow look.

            "But. Where's Ran-chan, then? I mean, you know, the original?"

            "She went to Dr. Tofu's," Ranma interrupted, noticing the glazed look entering Ranko's eyes. Though he had never seen the look, having more experience with giving it, he knew it indicated that Ranko felt slighted or insulted. It was a rare look, reserved for people he trusted who betrayed him, or took advantage of him. It was not a look Ukyo should inspire. "He's going to supervise her while she tests our new techniques," he elaborated, drawing Ukyo's attention fully to himself.

            "You just missed her," Ranko edged in a tight voice.

            "Why are you calling him "her"?" Ukyo turned to face the red-head.

            "Cuz, so far, she's the only one of us who's grasped the whole girl thing, and it's sort of inevitable, anyway," Ranko informed her, fully conscious that this bit of information would distress her friend. She hated doing it, but she could not help it. She had been hoping that her transition into a girl would restore the friendship that had been tainted by their engagement. Instead, it seemed that Ukyo valued her "fiancé" more. At the very least, it was obvious she was looking for "him" and had not given any thought to her. The next words out of Ukyo's mouth confirmed this.

            "Would it be a problem if I talked to, uh, her?"

            Ranko bit her lip, and focused her will on holding back her emotions. 

            "I doubt it," Ranma answered, eyeing Ranko nervously. He silently willed her to remember that Ukyo had only interacted with the copies, before they remembered being Ranma. She had not had a chance to associate them with Ranma, as Ranma. He'd have to talk to Ukyo, but right now it was best she left. "We're using the techniques on our dates, so there's no reason she can't deal with distractions too. If you're with her, that will sort of balance things out I guess," Ranma suggested, trying to sound helpful.

            "Okay. I'll catch up with you two later then!" Ukyo gave him a thankful look, turned to confront the blank, cold exterior of Ranko, and backed away. Without another word, she turned and left.

            "Bye, Ucchan!" Ranma called after her. Turning to Ranko, he sighed. Her face did not show it, but that had hurt her. Clearing his throat, he was about to state his impressions of how Ukyo behaved, when his father stormed through the room and seized him.

            "Come on, Boy!" Genma barked, dragging him toward the door.

            "Hey! Where are you taking me!" Ranma demanded, bracing himself.

            "Public baths," Genma declared, using the leverage he had to try and drag his son over his shoulder to foil his resistance. "You have a date to get ready for, and there's a line to use the bath here."

            "Whatever," Ranma slipped out of the hold and dodged out of reach. He considered himself adequately prepared, but he would not mind a bath. No point arguing against it. He turned to his twin, before following his father, as it occurred to him that it would be more convenient to proceed from the public bath to the site of his date. "Ranko, would you tell Akane to meet me at the park when she's ready?"

            "Sure. Have fun!" she shook off her irritation at Ukyo and gave him an encouraging smile. 

            "Are you kidding?" he retorted, grinning.

            "Ranma. Don't fool around, okay?" she got suddenly serious again. "We'd kill to trade places with you, so don't blow it." He met her eyes and frowned. It should not have been necessary for her to remind him that the feelings he had for Akane, however uncertain, haunted her as much as feelings for Ryouga haunted him. In both cases, there was a genuine regret for those feelings, as well as a sense of resignation and hope. It was safe to say they would prefer not to feel what they did, for who they did. At least, given the circumstances. It was unnerving to grasp the meaning of her warning. If he lost his chance with Akane, he would regret it. 

At the time Genma and Ranma disappeared around the corner at the end of the block, another figure appeared at the opposite end of the street. Lost in her own thoughts, she turned down the street and slowly approached the gates of the Tendo compound. As had become her habit, she prayed that her unannounced visit would blossom into a blissful reunion with her long lost son. If her wayward husband happened to be around as well, she might finally have the opportunity to properly chastise him for his pitiable lapse in communication these past few seasons. Glancing up, she allowed the sun to dance on her face and bring out the fiery highlights in her dark red hair. She still had no idea why her pregnancy with Ranma had caused the darkening of her once brilliant, scarlet mane. It had been the sight of such hair that had first drawn her attention to Ranko, where she had fallen into the canal. She had pretended surprise when Kasumi and Nabiki commented on the girl's resemblance to her, but that first afternoon she had rushed home to check her photo collection and confirm that the strange girl was a virtual twin for Nodoka herself at that age. It was simply mind boggling that Ranko was Akane's country cousin. If it were not impossible, she would insist that the girl was her own daughter! 

So far, she had only hinted at her thoughts to the funny panda that always followed Ranko around. She had approached her father to ask if she had any relatives married into the Tendo clan, to explain the uncanny resemblance, but word of his death had followed weeks later. She might never know if Ranko was truly her niece, as the girl clammed up about her family history as soon as the subject came up. All she did know was that the pictures of Ranko, purchased from Nabiki, had brought tears of happiness to her father's face. Perhaps, Nodoka thought, Nabiki might be able to unearth the truth. The middle Tendo daughter did have a knack for untangling mysteries. At the very least, the question served as a good excuse to pay a visit to the Tendos. Finding the shoji screen that served as the main entrance to the house proper ajar, she slipped inside and stepped out of her outdoor shoes. As she wandered down the hall she announced her presence with a loud, but gentle question. 

            "Is anyone home?"

            "Auntie Nodoka!" Kasumi's head popped out through the door to the kitchen. As usual, she greeted the Saotome matriarch with a warm smile and cheerful, "What a pleasant surprise!"

            "If you're looking for Ranma, you just missed him," Nabiki announced, coming down the stairs behind Nodoka.

            "Another training mission, Nabiki?" Nodoka sighed.

            "No," Nabiki grinned, "actually he's taking Akane out on a date. He just left to get ready." 

            "Oh. I see," Nodoka remained composed, but a smile graced her face. This was wonderful news. To date, it seemed that Ranma and Akane had kept their relationship behind closed doors. If she had not caught the two embracing in the dark, and realized that it was Ranma, and not some pervert making advances toward Akane, she might have believed the children were genuinely protesting their engagement. She was also relieved that Nabiki had explained the little conflict between Ranma and her husband's master, Happosai. Nabiki had explained that Happosai delighted in tormenting Ranma with the contract Genma had forced him to sign. Dressing Ranma in girls clothes to turn her against her own son was despicable, but it had been a relief to learn that she had been deceived by the old pervert. Shaking off her thoughts, she announced, "Perhaps I'll wait here, and see him when he comes home afterwards."

            To Nodoka's surprise, Kasumi's face became guarded. Blushing, the oldest daughter hastened apologetically, "Ah, well, we have other company. I am so sorry! I don't think we have a place for you to sleep if you stay late."

            "Really? Who is visiting."

            "Um. Ranko, of course, and the young man she's starting to date," Kasumi explained, leading the older woman into the Tea Room. Nodoka gaped in surprise, as she entered and spotted the red haired girl sitting pensively at the low table. Nodoka seated herself across the table and studied the girl who looked up at her in surprise.

            "Ranko-chan? Are you really dating a boy?" Nodoka queried with contained enthusiasm. 

            "Uh, yes?" Ranko swallowed in discomfort. Her eyes darted around for a moment then focused on Nodoka. "I mean, yes. I am," she declared with more conviction, blushing. 

            "I am so happy for you!" Nodoka enthused, smiling broadly. What a relief! Nodoka had nursed suspicions that Ranko and Akane were in a quiet rivalry over her son. From the way they fought and teased each other about Ranma, to the way both of them were so quick to protect Ranma the night Nodoka almost forced him to commit seppuku, it had seemed certain they both loved her son. It was the only thing that could explain the lengths Ranko had gone to, to confuse her and help him escape. She could hardly explain it, but she felt somehow that Ranko was doing the most to actually hide her son from her. Every time Nodoka felt close to seeing her son, Ranko somehow got in the way. She was also the one who seemed the most confident and convincing in conveying her son's thoughts and feelings to her in his absence. But finally, her interest had wandered to someone else. Someone she could admit her feelings for, as she could not with Ranma who was promised to her cousin. Tilting towards the girl she gushed, "Tell me, what is his name? What's he like? Is he handsome? Manly?"

            "Um. Well. He… His name is Ryouga Hibiki," Ranko fought down her embarrassment and tried to compose herself. Her mind was racing, wondering what her mother was doing here, and hoping her father had not summoned her. Surely he understood that it was still dangerous to risk introducing Ranma to his mother. At least both of the boys, however loosely the term applied to the original at the moment, were both absent. Still, if Nodoka was here because of Genma, she would certainly bring it up. Ranko did not dare raise suspicions by asking directly. Which was why she focused specifically on talking about Ryouga. "I think you might have met him, or at least heard of him. He's a... friend... of Ranma's." 

            "Really? He's a marital artist then?" Nodoka smiled at the girl's nod. She became absorbed in Ranko's descriptions of the boy's strengths and talents, and sighed at the casual way she criticized his weaknesses. It certainly sounded as if the two were intimately acquainted, and that the girl was used to sympathizing most strongly with Ranma in their many confrontations. She was rather shocked to hear the girl had toyed with the boy's feelings to assist Ranma in his schemes to thwart his friend/rival. From the edited version of "Ranko's" history with Ryouga, it sounded like she had tricked herself into falling in love with the boy, even as she tricked him into loving her. She ached to confront the boy and see if he was worthy of the girl she tended to think of as a daughter. Once again, she found herself wishing the girl WAS her daughter, so she could at least take her in hand and shake her out of this disgraceful masculine pose she hid behind. Then again, this date seemed like a good excuse to provide a little feminine influence. As the topic finally came back to the impending date, Nodoka interrupted to ask, in motherly concern, "I do hope you don't plan to go out like that."

            "No," the girl quickly assured, to Nodoka's surprise. She glanced down at herself and sighed before explaining, "Kasumi is going to help me get ready. I'm just waiting for Akane to get done in the bath."

            "Well, why don't you go join her?" Nodoka wondered with a perplexed look. The shock on the girl's face at the suggestion was almost priceless. Nodoka had to actually restrain her laughter and scowl gently. "I've never seen two girls as shy of each other as you and Akane," she noted aloud, clucking her tongue and shaking her head in parental confusion. 

            "Uh," Ranko sat transfixed in mild terror. 

            "Go on. I am sure she won't mind," Nodoka encouraged with shooing motions and a growing grin. "Now that you're both dating, it will be good practice overcoming some of your inhibitions. In fact," she looked down at her own apparel and noted the water stains and muddy film created when the dust from the construction site she had passed had mixed with the water that had drenched her before she cleared the area. Rising to her feet she continued, "I'm a bit soiled from the walk over here. We can all enjoy a good bath together." 

            "Oh no," the girl moaned in a tiny voice as Nodoka dragged her toward the washroom. This was not the first time her mother had tried to bathe with Ranko. The first time had been near disastrous, and later attempts had hardly been better. While the original cause for fear no longer applied to her, since she was really a girl, marching into a bathroom with Akane was another kettle of bombs altogether. She stripped down painfully slowly, delaying the inevitable, but as soon as Nodoka was naked, she stepped over and helped Ranko undress with the efficiency only a mother could manage. Handing Ranko a towel, she smiled and shoved the girl through the open shoji and into the bathing area. .

            Akane was just climbing into the furo when she noticed the intrusion. "Ran... Ranko! Wha... Mrs. Saotome?" Her eyes spotted the woman behind Ranko just in time to change her shout of outrage. Hastily composing herself, she asked more politely, "When did you get here? And, I thought I put the occupied sign out."

            "Now, now, Akane," the woman soothed, directing Ranko over to the wash stools. While Ranko began to rinse down and lather a bar of soap, Nodoka continued to chastise, "Girls your age should not be so shy. We're all women here, and I understand the two of you are both in a hurry to prepare for your dates. I would think you would want to save time by sharing a bath and helping each other get ready!"

            "O-of course. You're right," Akane blushed sheepishly. 

            "Sorry about this," Ranko muttered, risking a glance at Akane.

            "No, no. You, ah, you are a girl," Akane waved her hands and forced herself to smile. She sank into the water, hoping the heat disguised the spreading blush as she continued, still trying to convince herself, "There's nothing wrong with girls sharing a bath." 

            "You two act like you've never bathed together!" Nodoka giggled. 

            "Well. Like you said, I am kinda, uh, shy," Ranko quipped, staring at the wall intently as she scrubbed her body and repeated the mantra under her breath, "I am Ranko. Ranko is a girl. I am Ranko, Ranko is a girl…" She almost lost the thread when her mother squatted on the stool next to her and let her hair down. The motion caught her eye and caused her to look over and gasp in astonishment at the waist length tresses cascaded loose and full over her mother's shoulder, taking at least a decade off her age. She always thought her mother looked young, but her suddenly seeming closer to Kasumi's age was a shock. Her brain was too locked up to protest as Nodoka moved behind her and began untying the Dragon's Whisker she still wore, and unraveling Ranko's pig-tail. It had been so long since she had let her hair free that she thought for an instant that the hair growth magic had reactivated, when she felt it brushing her spine a touch lower than her shoulder blades. 

            Akane, sitting low in the bath, was marveling at the extent of the resemblance between Nodoka and Ranko, as she watched one attending the other. While one part of her mind wondered if Ranko would one day attain her mother's height, another part was asking itself what the next shock or surprise was going to be. If she was aware of who was presently barging into her home, she would have instantly regretted the thought.

            Fortunately, the young amazon had entered through the back yard and taken advantage of the wide opening facing the koi pond, rather than creating another entrance in her usual, destructive fashion. In any case, a dramatic entrance would have been wasted on Nabiki Tendo, and even Shampoo was leery of the financial repercussions of knocking down walls in the middle Tendo daughter's presence. As Shampoo whipped her head around looking for her usual target of affection, Nabiki crooked an eyebrow and asked dryly, "Hello, Shampoo. What brings you over?"

            "Shampoo come see why Airen no ask Shampoo go on date!" she declared in her piping voice, complete with cute scowl.

            "Shampoo," Nabiki sighed and rolled her eyes, as if beseeching the kami for patience. In her patented, lecture-the-idiot tone, the mercenary girl tried to spell things out, "Ranma has to go on a date with Akane. Their parents insisted on it. In fact, he's only going so he can test the techniques they learned today. Besides, I thought Cologne said you would not interfere while Ranma works on a cure. So..."

            "Shampoo not care about other Ranma," the purple haired girl snapped, her gaze still searching for her husband. Waving in dismissal, she focused on Nabiki, "Akane have, Shampoo keep real Ranma. Is no problem. So, where Airen?" Shampoo ground her teeth as Nabiki studied her thoughtfully, then smiled mischievously.

            "Oh. She is with Dr. Tofu..." Nabiki informed casually, then added as an after thought, "and Ukyo."

            "No! Shampoo stop Spatula Girl from interfering with Airen!" Shampoo shouted, in instant fury. She left so fast she set the wind chimes to spinning in the breeze. The delicate notes wafted through the house.

            "This should be amusing." Nabiki smiled in anticipation.

            "Do you think you should have told her about that?" Kasumi startled her younger sister, appearing next to her without warning. She had caught the entire exchange from the hall, just out of sight of the door. Nabiki sighed at the stern look the eldest daughter was giving her.

            "Relax, Kasumi. Having those two fighting over her will be good for Ranma-chan. It just might shake her back into being him," she assured blithely. Down the hall, the sound of a closet door opening, and rushing feet could be heard. The two girls turned to see Ryouga come panting towards them.

            "Did I just hear Shampoo in here?" he demanded in concern.

            "Hello, Ryouga!" Kasumi smiled at him, happily. She took in his appearance and offered a little frown. "Aren't you supposed to be getting ready for your date?"

            "Uh, the bath's in use, and I thought it would be best to stay where I am," he flushed in familiar irritation and embarrassment. He shot a glare at the smirking Nabiki, but continued to point out the obvious. "If I went with Ranma and his father, I might not make it back on time." 

            "Well, since Ranko's bathing with Akane and Auntie Nodoka, I suppose you still have some time," Kasumi acknowledged, leading the boy to the table and offering him a cup of tea. As usual, he thanked her politely and smiled when she knelt across from him to chat. "Have you decided where you two are going to go tonight?"

            "I have a few ideas. I was going to mention them to Ranko, and let her pick," he swallowed nervously, pulling out a notebook he had been scribbling his ideas down in. He quickly read through the list of potential date spots he had discovered in the course of his wanderings. In many cases, he even had travel and tourist brochures for various restaurants, theatres, dance and karaoke clubs, as well as scenic inns, temples and gardens. Kasumi offered noises of delight and surprise at the catalogue of ideas, passing them on to Nabiki in turn for her perusal. Nabiki winced and rolled her eyes, recognizing many of the exotic destinations as well as the discrepancies between their actual, and Ryouga's asserted, locations.

            "Uh, it's a first date, not a honeymoon tour," she quipped, catching Ryouga's eye. Ryouga gulped at the implication, and quickly pocketed the notes and brochures. Nabiki took a sip of tea and suggested, "Maybe you should let Ranko pick a place, and lead you there." 

            Ryouga nodded and sank into quiet contemplation. The two older girls began discussing wardrobe ideas for Ranko, debating her reaction to each suggestion, and wondering what kind of fighting her clothes would have to survive. Ryouga just hoped that all the fussing over Ranko did not shake her nerve completely. He did not need to be told that she was very hesitant about all of this. If it had just been her, alone, no other considerations, Ryouga doubted Ranko would have submitted to her condition any further than being a complete tomboy and prospective lesbian. It was the hope of being Nodoka's daughter that was driving her to all of this. Yes, she had some feelings for him, thanks to Copy-chan. Those feelings embodied everything Ranma had ever feared about his curse. She was not doing this for him, he was just a perceived necessity in doing this for Nodoka. He was scared. He was positive he was going to end up having his heart ripped out. Still, he couldn't resist. The girl in Ranma had hooked him. He hated himself for doing it, because of the whole Ranma connection, but he was determined to get that girl back. 

            Ryouga was still lost in thought a while later when Ranko, Akane and Nodoka emerged from the bath. He glanced up to see them standing in robes, hair down, and glowing in good health and hygiene. He swallowed and tried to breathe, as he noticed that Ranko, with her hair down, in no way resembled a boy. In a sense, it was his first good look at the girl he loved. It reminded him of his first sight of Akane, fresh from bathing, but with a lot more impact. She met his eyes and smiled shyly, quite aware of his feelings for her. It made the blood sing in his ears. In spite of that, he could clearly hear Kasumi's comments.

            "Ah, good, you are done." Kasumi turned to the man who had walked up behind the three women and smiled, "Father, I am taking Ranko upstairs to help her get ready. Could you show Ryouga to the bath, and then help him get dressed when he is done?" the Tendo patriarch nodded, at a loss for words as he stared at the three females. The combined impact of Nodoka's youthfulness, Ranko's femininity, and Akane's strong resemblance to his departed wife was shocking. Kasumi led the lost boy over to him and dragged her father's hand to his shoulder, adding, "I picked out something nice from Ranma's wardrobe for him to wear. You'll find it in the washroom. Thank you!"

            "Do you mind if I come too?" Nodoka asked Kasumi, as she proceeded to lead Ranko toward the stairs. Akane had already moved ahead of them and paused on the stairs to look back. She had watched the change in Ranko during their bath, and did not know what to make of her at the moment. Nodoka's presence had completely unwound the former boy. She seemed in a daze, but at the same time possessed of a girlish charm and grace in posture and gesture. If it didn't seem implausible, she would think that Ranko had begun to act natural, but, where in the hell did THAT nature come from? Though it seemed like a lot to have on her mind, it really just flashed up for an instant, and then Kasumi replied to Nodoka.

            "That would be wonderful! Come on, Ranko!"

            "Can't back out now. I chose this…" the girl muttered under her breath, wondering why, with this constant, horrible feeling of falling, she could move with such unconscious composure. 


	20. Provoking the Girl

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Twenty: Provoking the Girl

As the sun dipped toward the horizon, bringing one of the last few days of winter to a close, a fiery streak of scarlet hair and silk cloth bounded across the rooftops. In her wake followed the black blur of Happosai's gi, and the violet furl of Cologne's robes. As the three dropped to the street approaching Dr. Tofu's clinic, they slowed to speeds the eye could manage to resolve into solid forms. Though she was not winded from the exertions demanded to achieve the illusion of flight, the girl took deep breaths to sigh over her troubled thoughts. The old man and woman accompanying her repeatedly looked over at her in curiosity. Both elders had made a point of learning the language of the cursed teen's body, and could not overlook the change in the pitch and tone of her character. For different reasons, this was cause for encouragement and concern. Declaring herself a girl in every move and gesture confirmed the hopes of the Amazon Matriarch of recovering a lost heroine. The effect this had on Happosai, however, was woefully predictable. Bouncing around Ranma-chan as she walked languidly towards the clinic, with large, dewy eyes and trembling hands, he could not contain himself.

            "Such a long face," he finally mourned, drawing her attention. He caught her eye an winked impishly, before launching himself toward her ample bosom, "Don't worry, Ranma-chan! Grandpa Happosai will make it all better!" 

            "Kyaaaa!" she screamed, as he darted effortlessly past her guard and glommed onto her chest. With a flush fueled by the unwanted sensations aroused by his groping hands, she whipped into motion, clapping her hands over his ears to stun him. As he recoiled from the blow to his hearing, she reached out and plucked a huge mallet from thin air and brought it down with righteous, feminine fury. The staggering rain of amagurikan blows pummeled the old pervert into a virtual stain over the asphalt before she could reel back, panting and heaving to complain, sorely, "D-dammit! You sick old man!" 

            "Child!" Cologne gasped, with eyes like saucers, "Are you still thinking as a girl?" The girl stiffened and stared at the mallet in her hands, wondering where it had come from. Her eyes snapped up to Cologne's, her face growing darker in embarrassment. 

            "I… I… Uh," she gulped to slow her panting. Unconsciously, she returned the mallet to hammer space. Part of her mind was fighting down the persona the amazon's words provoked. She was not Ranma anymore, so there was no reason to be upset by the question. Right? Glaring she retorted, "Do you think I have a choice!?" 

            "Ranma!" the old woman reprimanded, sounding disappointed. The answer suggested that there was quite a bit of the old Ranma still in the girl. On the surface, this uncharacteristic behavior could suit her ends, but not if it emerged in such an unhealthy fashion. It seemed that Ranma was not becoming a girl at all, but rather trying to avoid the situation entirely. Finding that unacceptable, she lectured, "Even when there seems to be no options in life, we still have choices. I don't mean to criticize yours, but I confess I never imagined Ranma Saotome would pick this path willingly." 

            "I didn't choose this as Ranma," she growled, confirming Cologne's suspicions. She hastened to add, as a cunning gleam entered the amazon's eye, "And I'm not Fa Shen, either!" 

            "Who are you then?" 

            "Who is anyone, caught between one life and another?" 

            "That is an interesting philosophical question," Cologne observed, smirking, "but I wonder, can it be that without some outside influence, your choice is to be a girl?" She watched the teen squirm, fighting to keep her masculine identity down. She looked like she might succeed, until Happosai latched onto her thigh and began rubbing his cheek against her leg.

            "Ah! If so, you have my unconditional support, Ranma-chan!" 

            "Wha-! Th-that's… Gaaaah!" Ranma-chan finally snapped. Her posture shifted quickly as she shook the pervert off. Standing with arms and legs cocked in an aggressive pose, huffing in ire, she turned to Cologne and demanded, "How can you say that to me RIGHT NOW!?" 

            "Feh. Curiosity is one of the few pleasures left to an old woman," she waved the teen's anger off. Satisfied that Ranma's spirit was not broken after all, but simply displaced out of confusion, she offered a little more provocation. "There is a saying, in the West, that behind every great man you will find a great woman. I just wonder if that is particularly true in the case of Son-In-Law." 

            "You're laughing at me!" 

            "I try to find humor in all situations. It sweetens the bitterness of life," Cologne deflected with elderly drama. Putting a little seriousness back into her gaze, she met Ranma-chan's eye, "So, do you have an answer to my question?" 

            "I don't know how to stop bein' a girl without tryin' to be Ranma," she deflated, quickly retreating back into her adopted manner with an uneasy look. "I don't think I can do that without tryin' to rip the other one's face off!" 

            "So, you're hiding." 

            "Strategic retreat," she corrected quickly. Her face became more thoughtful as she settled the emotions Cologne had stirred up. Finding some center, she spoke with greater composure and authority, cutting straight to the point she had been focused on. "Right now I have more important problems, like surviving. There's no time to worry about who and what you are in the middle of a fight. I can sort that all out later." 

            "Ran-chan!" a familiar voice intruded.

            "Ucchan?" she turned and saw the okonomiyaki chef running towards them from the far end of the street. She had a look of relief and determination at seeing her fiancé. She rushed forward with renewed intent, as she saw Ranma-chan pause in surprise and wait. 

            "It looks like she has something on her mind," Cologne noted, sighing. A glance at Ranma-chan was enough to determine that she had pushed her concern as far as necessary at the moment. Suspecting that the approaching girl would be less than pleased to face Ranma-chan in her present state, she decided it might be good to give them time to speak alone. Nothing else seemed to discourage the stubborn and independent girl. Clearing her throat, she volunteered, "Happi and I can go inform Dr. Tofu of our plans, and bring him up to speed. Once he knows what to do, we will split up to watch over the other two." 

            "Sure," Ranma-chan shrugged, realizing the elders were excusing themselves. As much as she valued their help, the old woman's probing questions—not to mention the kind of probing she got from the old pervert—got quite wearying and upsetting. It would be nice to just talk to a friend. As she caught up, Ranma-chan smiled warmly in greeting, "Hey, Ucchan!" 

            "Ran-chan! I'm so glad I finally caught up to you," she came to a stop and bent over to pant a few times in exaggeration of her haste and relief. With a smile, she straightened and quickly spelled out the nature of the obstacles she had faced to reach him, "I stopped at the dojo and I swear it's become impossible to tell your copies from you!" 

            "Uh, that's cuz they're not just copies, Ucchan." 

            "I don't understand," Ukyo puzzled at Ranma-chan's frown.

            "I thought Akane was tellin' you everything?" Ranma scowled, in an eerie echo of Ranko. "I dunno if I can really explain it, but different bodies and forms aside, we all have the same mind, spirit and soul. We're all the same person." 

            "So you're still Ranma?" Ukyo pressed, with a hopeful, searching look. Seeing the red-head hesitate, she quickly clarified, "I mean, you're just pretending to be a girl to fool the others, right?" 

            "Uh, not exactly," she looked away, uncomfortably.

            "What do you mean, not exactly!?" Ukyo glared threateningly. 

            "Ranma's an identity, a part of me," Ranma-chan wondered if it was possible to explain the strange dichotomy she had experienced since the last visit to the cursed mirror. Remembering when she first noticed it, after the exorcism, she elaborated, "I look inside of myself and it- he's there. At the same time, I look around and he's right there next to me. Well, not at the moment, but he's already out there. So, I am still Ranma, just… not right here, right now." 

            "What!? You can read his mind?" her eyes widened in disbelief.

            "Can't you read yours?" Ranma-chan challenged. 

            "No! I mean, can you hear what he is thinking right now?" 

            "Uh…" the distinction Ukyo was making suddenly became clear. She shared the same mind as the reflections, no question. They way they fell into synch proved that. It had not occurred to her to ask if, somehow, their minds were linked similar to their ki. She turned her attention towards the "Ranma" in the back of her mind and tried to "listen" in on him. At the same time, if felt like a giant hole suddenly opened up and the whole world might tip over and fall into it! Gasping she wrenched her mind away from that precipice and clutched a hand over her heart. "Geez! Don't ask me that! That's like jumpin' off a cliff!" 

            "I've seen you do that lots of times, Ran-chan." 

            "Yeah, well, it's different when you can't see the bottom…" 

            "Hmmm," Ukyo did not think Ranma's panic attack was just a joke. Who knew what it did to someone to be in several places at once. It was so hard to believe, she still struggled with his assertion that the copies were really him. Still, she was his friend, and she wanted to believe him. If Copy-chan really was Ranma, that might explain how she was acting earlier. Or, Ranko, she corrected. What a headache! She tried again. If Ranko was really Ranma, and not Copy-chan… Ukyo swallowed. She sensed she might have insulted the girl. Shaking her head, she told herself to deal with it later. Right now, the problem was with Ran-cha… cursed Ran-chan. "Alright, so, if that's the case then—all of you being Ranma—what's with you acting like a girl? I mean, shouldn't that be Ranko?" 

            "Ranko hasn't gotten there yet," the girl sighed and shrugged. How did she explain that she was hiding in the one safe corner of her psyche that she had found, and that just happened to bring out the girl in her? This conversation was turning into the same conversation she just had with Cologne. "It's not that I'm tryin' to act like a girl, but, I'm tryin' NOT to act like Ranma. Besides, there seems to be more than one girl in me…" 

            "That doesn't sound fair, Ranma." 

            "Who said life was fair?" Ranma-chan waved her arms angrily, pacing around in a circle as she ranted. "My life has never been fair! If I let it get to me, I'd have turned into Ryouga and blown up Nerima in a fit of depression!" 

            "I- I suppose you have a point. But still…" The hurt and confusion finally surfaced and flowed across Ukyo's face, as she demanded, "Why can't there be two Ranma's?" 

            "I've already asked that, and as far as I can see, the world isn't big enough for two Ranmas," she stopped pacing and turned to face Ukyo, sadly. She closed her eyes and tried to explain what she'd realized the first time it really hit her what she had lost, as she considered taking it back. "We'd kill each other tryin' to prove who was really the best martial artist. Ranma Saotome never loses, but in Ranma vs. Ranma, it isn't possible for Ranma to win." 

            "Is that all that matters to you!?" 

            "It's what bein' Ranma is all about, Ucchan. I thought you'd understand that." Ranma-chan folded her arms and looked at her friend with a little disappointment. It was sort of ironic, that she would be the one to point out just how shallow Ranma was, when it came right down to basics. 

            "I thought you'd realize that Ranma Saotome has more than one future to consider," Ukyo snapped back, finally getting angry. It seemed that her worst fear had been proven. Ranma had not given her a single thought during all of this. Not even to strengthen his own position and hold onto his manhood! She had the urge to take her frustration and anger and shove it down the throat of this impertinent girl who had taken her Ran-chan's place. Glaring, she roared, "Hell, a second Ranma has a much better chance at happiness." 

            "How?" Ranma-chan blinked in honest confusion.

            "A second Ranma could marry me!" she shouted. Ranma-chan gaped at her in complete surprise, as it finally penetrated. Suddenly, the whole confrontation made sense, and Ranma-chan had all but thrown her contempt of her friend, as a potential mate, in Ukyo's face. While Ranma honestly did not care for any of the engagements and entanglements that had come up, and tended to dismiss all of them in favor of trying to hold onto the threads of real friendship they supplanted, Ukyo took the matter quite seriously. Ranma's habit of letting that slide, and thinking about it as little as possible, had seriously screwed things up this time! Before Ranma-chan could think of a thing to say, in the instant she realized this, another familiar figure burst through a near-by sound wall. 

            "That where Spatula Girl wrong!" the Amazon growled, thrusting a bonbori at the okonomiyaki chef. Ranma-chan and Ukyo both jumped in surprise.

            "Shampoo!" Ranma-chan gasped.

            "What are you doing here!?" Ukyo demanded angrily, composing herself. By pure reflex, she had drawn her huge spatula and a handful of mini-spats, taking a guard position against the purple-haired amazon.

            "I come go on date with Airen," Shampoo smirked in challenge. 

            "Well, sorry to disappoint you, but your 'Airen' is too busy trying to be a girl right now! Why don't you go chase after a 'real' man." Though she was facing Shampoo, and issuing these remarks in direct challenge to her, she was deliberately lashing out at Ranma-chan too. Unfortunately, neither girl twitched. Ranma-chan in her current frame of mind was almost immune to the usual jabs at her manhood, but Shampoo's sneer came as a surprise. 

            "Stupid! Shampoo know truth, cursed Ranma heart and soul of all Ranmas," she declared authoritatively, waving a bonbori in Ranma-chan's direction. She pointed it back at Ukyo, "You wasting time try take Airen. You too stupid, not understand you already lost again! Akane already have Second Ranma, no more is obstacle to Shampoo. Spatula Girl maybe compete with Pig Boy, try date girl Ranma. Make perfect couple, two girls both wish they be boys!" Shampoo finished with a mocking laugh. 

            "Hah! I don't need you to tell me who the real Ranma is, and if you want to talk about who has a stronger claim, I've been promised to him for almost ten years! I know Ranma will chose me, because I won't try and turn him into an 'ancient amazon heroine' like you and your crazy tribe!" Ukyo retorted, nonplussed, lunging forward to engage her arrogant opponent. Shampoo eagerly joined the battle, swinging her bonbori in a coordinated pattern to confound the single weapon in Ukyo's hands. 

            "Uh, excuse me…" Ranma-chan tried to draw their attention, as they began to bound along the perimeter of the street seeking an advantage.

            "You stay quiet, Airen. Shampoo take care of nuisance," she shifted and lunged as Ukyo paused. Ukyo squirted away from the thrust, which smashed down another privacy wall and created a sizeable crater where she had been standing. 

            "That nuisance happens to be my friend!" Ranma-chan shouted.

            "Yeah!" Ukyo grinned, happy to hear some support from her fiancé. As soon as this intrusion was taken care of, she and Ran-chan could work out the misunderstanding they had been having. There was no way she was going to let the amazons get their hands on him! As she rushed in to slice at Shampoo, she promised, "Don't worry, Ran-chan. I'll save you from becoming Fa Shen." 

            "Uh, I don't know how you can do that," Ranma-chan staggered, distracted from her effort to jump in and stop the fight by the suddenly absurd declaration. She turned to track the chef as she twisted through a series of thrusts and feints, driving Shampoo back, and shouted the clarification, "I AM Fa Shen, regardless of if I remember it all or not." As the words left her mouth, she had to throw out her arms for balance and shake her head. She glanced around, rubbing her head to see if she had taken a glancing blow, to suddenly become dizzy like that. She was distracted by Shampoo's retort.

            "No worry, Airen! Shampoo not like others in tribe. Want strong husband more than other womans to compete with!" she declared, pausing to offer a smile and nod of assurance to her statement. Ukyo sprung to take advantage of the opening. Shampoo was forced to block hastily, and stared as the sharpened end of the giant spatula sheared the head of one of her bonbori clean off. Tossing the shaft aside, she growled and retaliated with the remaining weapon.

            "Would you two stop fighting for a minute!" Ranma-chan bellowed in alarm as her vision began to grey out. Terrified that this was because of the bleeding, she shut the fight out of her mind and reached inward to focus on the vital matrix of her ki. To her surprise, her reserves were full, perfectly contained by the barriers she had spent the day weaving into place. Blinking, trying to bring the world into focus, she felt a presence closing in on her from an uncertain direction. 

            "Shampoo promise help defend Airen from threat during vun- vul- broken time." The amazon continued to shout over her shoulder to her beloved, unaware of the strange convulsions that suddenly gripped her body. She jerked as if gravity had flicked off and on, then turned to stare at the battling girls.

            "You're kidding! You're just the type he needs to be protected from!" Ukyo retorted, equally ignorant of the fit that had passed through Ranma-chan. She was as shocked as Shampoo when Ranma-chan's voice barked out in Mandarin. To Ukyo, it made no sense at all, but she could see the amazon's face pale in comprehension.

            "Warrior Maiden! Cease this insult at once!" the red-head commanded, in direct address to Shampoo. There was a stern and angry glare to back her words up. Seeing the purple-haired amazon freeze in shock, Ranma-chan continued, fluently, "This outsider is protected under my bond of friendship, and thus an ally of the tribe." 

            Shampoo gaped at her for several rapid breaths. She knew at once what had happened, but she did not want to believe it. It had to be a bluff, it was so Ranma's style to rattle her like that. She frowned and glared back. Impersonating an amazon warrior was a serious offense, and she had to correct her Airen at once, else he make that mistake again! "Aiyaa! What you do! You no can invoke tribal law!" 

            "Why do you question me in this broken tongue?" the resurrected amazon demanded suspiciously, continuing to speak in Mandarin, beginning to doubt her first impression of Shampoo. Her attention was focused on the two girls, but elements of their surroundings were beginning to crystallize in her mind. She called up a protective aura as she noticed how alien her environment seemed. This unconscious display of power finally cowed Shampoo. 

            "Is Great Grandmother orders," she bowed her head in acknowledged shame. A true amazon would realize the punitive nature of such a directive. "She Matriarch of tribe. Shampoo no can speak Mandarin without permission." 

            "I see," the girl frowned in guarded concern. She felt instant sympathy for the disgraced amazon, but understood the necessity of such strict policies. It did not take a genius to realize that there was probably a reason to use this foreign language, and she was thankful she was somehow familiar with it. It seemed safe to cover her own confusion about her circumstances by using Shampoo's prohibition as an excuse to follow suit. Switching to the strange language, she made it a gesture of respect, "Then I shall also speak the outsiders' tongue." 

            "What the hell is going on here?" Ukyo finally interrupted, thankful to understand the words coming from Ranma-chan again, if not necessarily what she was talking about. 

            Shampoo ignored Ukyo and carefully approached Ranma-chan. "Are you Fa Shen?" she asked cautiously.

            "Who do I look like?" Fa Shen retorted, with a confused smirk.

            "Fa Shen? What happened to Ran-chan?" Ukyo babbled.

            "What you do with Airen?" Shampoo demanded.

            "I don't know who you are talking about," Fa Shen frowned in confusion. She could not miss the glare Ukyo shot at Shampoo for using that term of endearment. She raised an eyebrow in understanding, looking between them. Trusting her instinct, and sighing inwardly over the endless trouble that came from associating with males, she inquired gently, "Is this husband of yours the reason you two were fighting?" The girls both scowled, but did not reply. Fa Shen looked around and rubbed her head. She was quite disoriented, but that had happened before. Some facts seemed intact, if incomplete. The rest was total confusion. The other amazon had not declared a kiss of death in response to her own assertion, so that was not the reason for them being in a foreign land. If they were fighting over a man, though, another thing seemed plausible. "Is he the reason we have come to this strange land?" 

            "Uh. Do you have any idea where you are?" Ukyo asked her suddenly.

            "Mmmm. No clue," Fa Shen admitted, with a half smile.

            "Do you have any idea how you got here?" 

            "I- I think I might have taken a blow to the head or something. My memory is kind of… confused." 

            "You claim bond of friendship with Spatula Girl. Why that?" 

            "Her name is Ukyo, and… How odd." Fa Shen frowned in thought. She was positive that she knew Ukyo, but her mind held no details to explain why. "I know she's my friend, but I don't remember where from." She turned to study the okonomiyaki chef intently, frowning in concentration. With a hopeful look she met the girl's eyes and asked, "We are friends, right?" 

            "This is kinda scary!" Ukyo was stepping back in distress, edging away from what was happening. She turned to look at Shampoo and found a similar look of unease on her delicate face. 

            "We need talk to Great Grandmother! She figure out what happen to Airen!" she insisted, grabbing Fa Shen by the arm and leading her into Tofu's clinic. Ukyo followed, praying silently that there was an explanation, and hopefully a remedy!

Akane had wondered why Ranma wanted to meet in the park to start their date, until she arrived at sunset. For a moment, she walked through the trees, stunned by the natural glory. Gold gilded every leaf, bringing out each one in sharp detail. The sky itself was a vast tapestry of scarlet, orange, gold and pink clouds transformed into bizarre and breathtaking landscapes. The spectacle quickly took her mind off of the strange scene she had found herself in earlier. From the awkwardness of sharing a bath with Ranko and her mother, who added salts and oils to the hot water to enhance the natural scent and softness of their skin, to the strangeness of watching Ranko being dressed and made up for all she was worth. Akane grimaced. She was well aware of the girl's natural assets, but had never imagined the impact of skillfully applied cosmetics and proper wardrobe. Neither she, nor Ryouga had recognized her when she finally came downstairs. 

            Ranko had paused, timid and nervous as she smoothed down her dress. Her hair had hung loose and free, parted to one side and styled to fall away from her face. Her mother had dismissed the wildly sexy outfits Nabiki had suggested, finding something surprisingly elegant in the back of her closet. The dress was a full length, black cotton tube that clung to Ranko's curves, with a matching, black bolero jacket. Black heels and elbow length gloves, a black hair ribbon and a borrowed black purse completed the ensemble, with silver accents provided by a multi strand necklace, a belt of interlocking silver loops, clip-on earrings, and bangle bracelets. Ryouga had suddenly been grateful for the understated tux Soun had forced him into. He was also grateful to hear that Nodoka had made reservations at a classy Tokyo restaurant, when she heard about his little direction problem, and volunteered to act as chaperone and guide there and back. Nabiki had almost blinded everyone taking pictures of Ranko and her date, and Akane had proceeded out the door to meet Ranma largely by feel. The image of Ranko, looking both lost and determined, was burned into her retinas for a good two blocks. 

            Akane was so lost in contemplation, she was unprepared for the silhouette that emerged on the path ahead of her. For an instant, her heart was in her throat and cold sweat popped out on her skin. Shaking herself, and grumbling inwardly for her inattention, she took a few more hesitant steps and asked timidly, "Ranma?" 

            "Akane!" he turned around and smiled at her. "You got here quicker than I expected!" His eyes took in the length of her dress, admiring the way it clung to and enhanced her form. He had expected her to show up in a pantsuit, ready to fight the expected rivals. He noted that the pleated skirt concealed high slits that would allow her to fight if necessary, as well as the low heeled boots. Practical and pretty, he concluded in silent appreciation. 

            Akane smiled back and quickly closed the distance. Once she stepped out of the shade of the trees, she turned to look him in the eyes. Unable to think of a reply, she said the first thing that came to her, a question posed as a statement. "Ranko told me to meet you here." 

            "I'm glad she remembered," Ranma sighed. He had been worried that the message would be forgotten and that Akane would get mad at him for never coming to get her. He quickly explained his dad's insistence on dragging him off to the public baths. Expecting some delays, he had arranged to meet in the park to save time. Akane sighed as she realized that the timing of the sunset was just an accident. Uncertain of her reaction, Ranma asked hesitantly, "Are you ready to uh, start our, um, date?" 

            "I- I guess so. First, I have to warn you." 

            "What?" he swallowed nervously at her serious expression. 

            "Your mother showed up and plans to stay for the night," she announced, unsurprised as a flash of panic crossed his face. She related Kasumi's efforts to discourage her, backed by Nabiki, claiming that there were too many guests to accommodate the Saotome matriarch. Unfortunately, "She twisted Dad's arm until he overrode Kasumi and Nabiki." 

            "Oh no!" 

            "You have no idea!" Akane rolled her eyes and gestured for them to start walking together. "She started mothering Ranko as soon as she learned about the date, and now she feels she needs to stick around to talk to her and Ryouga afterwards." 

            "But, this means I can't come home tonight!" 

            "I am glad you see that," Akane glared sarcastically, not the least impressed with how slow he was to get the point. Shaking her head, she gave him a moment to digest her warning. There was, however, a bright side for her, she smiled and confided impishly, "At least I get my room to myself tonight. Ranko and Mrs. Saotome will take the guest room, as usual, with 'Mr. Panda'. Poor Ryouga has to sleep in the dojo." Ranma chuckled at his rival's fate, dismissing his concern about the pig being alone in the house with Ranko. The odds of him making it inside from the dojo were too slim to worry about. Akane sniffed at his reaction, and remembered suddenly. Grabbing Ranma's arm and turning to face him in alarm, she insisted, "We have to go and warn the other Ranma and see if Dr. Tofu, or someone, can find a place to put you two for the night." 

            "Okay," he nodded, taking the next turn on the path to head roughly back the way Akane had come. "I guess we should do that before we start the date." 

            "Yeah." 

            The couple walked along in companionable silence as the sky darkened gradually. This was what they did best together, really. If neither of them spoke, and they just took in the sights as they wandered from one place to another, they were truly able to enjoy each other's company. Usually, the sight of them just being together, without fighting, was enough to keep their father's from interfering. It was common enough for them to wander the streets of Nerima together that it rarely set off any of the rivals. Occasionally, they could reach out and hold hands, if they were alone. The usual danger was that they might start talking and end up in one of their fights. Still, that never stopped them, and for once there was always a lot to talk about. Ranma cleared his throat, and organized his thoughts. He had drifted back to the bit between his mother and his female counterpart and found it hard to imagine how it had gone. His curiosity finally forced him to ask.

            "So, how was Ranko taking it?" 

            Akane glanced at him, and smiled. She wondered how long it would take him to ask. "She seemed sort of dazed, but little happy too. She kind of dropped her guard and even asked her mother for advice on dating." 

            "You're kidding!" Ranma stared at her with wide eyes.

            "Well, she was afraid she would have to kiss Ryouga at the end of her date." That too brought a funny look from him. Nabiki would have killed to see his reactions. More so to have been the one to drop the bombs on him. It was kind of fun! Ranma shook his head after a second and sighed.

            "Ah, well, I can understand her fear then. Thanks to Copy-chan, she has a lot to live up to in that, uh, relationship." That got an odd look from Akane, who visibly twitched. 

            "At least you don't have that problem," she teased.

            "What do you mean by that?" he huffed in confusion.

            "Well, for one thing, the only girl Copy-kun kissed was you, so to speak." Akane grinned as he squirmed. She knew it must burn him to know that he had inherited the body that had figured prominently in certain intimacies. With the memories to go with it, he had shown his inner, perverted nature and could not deny it to her any more.

            "I'm never gonna live that down, am I?" he glared uncomfortably.

            "It's okay, Ranma. I know you're too terrified to kiss someone on your own. You always let other people start that!" she could not resist tightening the screws a little more. When he reared up and began to steam, she forced herself to suppress a smile. 

            "I don't LET them!" he raged.

            "What?" she stared in mock surprise and disbelief. "You mean the great martial artist keeps dropping his guard like that!?" 

            "Heh," he suddenly realized she was just trying to get a rise out of him, and he responded, without thinking, in kind. "Well, I'd like to see a clumsy tomboy like you try and get through my guard!" Without warning, a large, speeding mallet planted itself in his face, knocking him onto his rear. She stood over him, hefting her mallet in one hand and smirked.

            "I don't see the difficulty." 

            "That was a cheap shot," he complained, bouncing to his feet.

            "Sure, keep making excuses." She refused to back down as he got into her face. He scowled and stared indignantly.

            "You weren't tryin' to kiss me!" he clarified.

            "Oh? Is that what you wanted?" she asked with sudden interest.

            "W- wait, I- I didn't mean…" he immediately backpedaled, arms wind milling in characteristic panic.

            "Of course not," she aired, with narrow eyes. She stalked along, ignoring his attempts to nerve himself up to another round of what passed for them as flirtation. Before he could come up with something to say, they rounded a corner and she announced, "There's the clinic, come on!" 

            The clinic was rarely busy after dark, and usually the only lights came from the apartment above it where Tofu Ono resided. This evening, there seemed to be a lot of activity inside. Just coming in the door, the presence of a half a dozen people could be detected by Ranma's heightened senses. Wondering who, besides Ranma-chan and Tofu were visiting, he pushed through the waiting area and entered the examination rooms ahead of Akane. He spotted Ranma-chan sitting on an examination table in the center of a group consisting of the two elders, the doctor and a pair of rival fiancées. They were so absorbed in conversation with the red-haired girl, none of them seemed to notice the arrivals. The first to look up at the presence of Ranma and Akane was Ranma-chan. She took one look at them and narrowed her gaze on Ranma. With unexpected fury, she exploded towards Ranma with a guttural cry.

            "YOU!" 


	21. Shocks to the System

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Twenty-One: Shocks to the System

A civilized culture, even one that was isolated in the mountains and centered on agriculture, produced individuals who could recognize the essentials of human technology. Even confronted with completely unfamiliar architecture, and the apparent wealth invested in large panes of glass, smooth metal fixtures, sophisticated furnishings and plumbing, it was not hard to examine this strange building and conclude that it was a healer's domicile. Fa Shen was in a constant daze from her quick tour of the facility, amazed at how clean and neat everything was, and simply awed at the lamps that produced such bright and constant light. She had fiddled with the taps that produced fresh, sparkling water in contrasting temperatures, marveling at how small and unobtrusive the fixtures were. The only thing she had seen like it resided in Jusendo, and those taps were magical monoliths. Very few were privileged to see them, isolated in their secret mountain, but in this strange land, the same wonder had been reduced to a minor convenience apparently taken for granted by everyone else present. She had noticed the unfamiliar Amazon elder's eyes on her as she skirted the edge of conversation to satisfy her curiosity, and wondered how one of her own people could be so inured to all of the fabulous artifacts she was discovering. 

            It was quite unnerving, to say the least. She was hardly an expert in crafts, but she could recognize the wealth of resources and craftsmanship in the least of the objects she examined. The medical lore alone, displayed on the finest quality of paper sheets on the walls, was astonishing. Truly, there was much for her people to desire from these foreigners, and much to potentially fear from them as well! Turning to study the young physician, she frowned. She could tell just by looking at him that he was a skilled martial artist, and from the way even the elders differed to him, a master of his trade. That a man should be recognized in such an esteemed and honorable practice warned her that this was certainly a patriarchal society. Such a man could have his pick of the warrior maidens she remembered from home. They would fall over themselves to catch his attention, in hopes of inspiring him to challenge them for marriage. 

            She frowned again. It looked like that perverted little monkey was recovering from her last retaliation and eyeing her for yet another unwanted assault. He was a lot tougher than she'd first estimated. Perhaps that was why the Matriarch, Cologne, honored him with her tolerance. "Well, let him try again," she hissed to herself. She had a surprise ready for him. She extended her chi, careful to release only negatively charged energy, to suffuse the room. In her circuit of the clinic, she was careful to avoid the old man, to delay his next attack. At the same time, she was trying to keep out of earshot of Shampoo. As soon as she got the idea that the other amazon held her somehow accountable for the disappearance of her Airen, she retreated in haste. She did not, ever, get involved in the romantic delusions of weaker girls. Being out of sorts, she did not feel free to show her displeasure at the insult Shampoo had given with her accusations. She did not remember the man to begin with, so how was she supposed to "bring him back" as Shampoo demanded of her and Cologne?

            A shock crawled up her spine, and she realized the perverted old man had vanished from sight. She instantly drew in her ki and changed the polarity of her aura. With a speed that impressed her, he blurred into sight about a foot away, too close for her to block his assault. He slammed into her chest and, as his hands began to grope her, began to draw energy from her. That was her cue! With one hand, she gripped the top of his bald head and shouted, "Raking Claws! Vengeance of Heaven!" and poured positively charged chi into his diminutive form. 

            Everyone in the room turned to stare as bolts of lightening flashed from every corner of the room to focus their malice on Happosai. The electricity began to arc between her victim and the strange lamps and socket fixtures girding the clinic. All of the lights flickered and several exploded in a shower of sparks. Somehow, these things contributed something to her attack, but Fa Shen was too focused on her technique to think about it much. The old letch twitched and blackened, then peeled away from the girl to drift slowly to the ground. As he came to rest, Fa Shen jumped up and stomped on him a few times for good measure. "That should teach you! Dirty old man!"

            The two girls in the room flinched back in shock, hands out in warding gestures, while the doctor and the old woman gazed at her in stunned appreciation. One of the lights that had not exploded flickered madly for a few seconds then went out. "That was an impressive technique, young lady," Cologne drawled, regaining her composure first. 

            "I didn't expect it to work that well in an enclosure," she admitted, stepping off of Happosai's charred form. She looked up and noticed the damage to the lighting. Shrugging, she dusted her hands off and faced the others. "I'm not complaining though. He had that coming!"

            "You've got that right, sugar!" Ukyo cheered, recovering from her surprise. Hesitantly, she approached. "Was that a chi technique? I've never seen anything like it from Ranma," she turned to Cologne, expecting the usual lecture to follow.

            "Who?" Fa Shen asked, always interested to hear of other chi manipulators. The perturbed look Ukyo flashed her was not the answer she expected. Frowning, she answered the question, "Yes. It's something I came up with to deal with Ergot." Seeing no recognition of the name she glared, "You know, the Prince of the Musk!?"

            "I thought his name was Herb," Ukyo frowned. 

            "Come over here, child," Cologne interrupted hastily, summoning Fa Shen over to the examination table where she had been talking with Dr. Tofu before the light show. In spite of the fact that even the two amazons present were strangers to her, they were the only familiar thing to cling to. As she had identified Shampoo by observing her fighting styles, she had recognized Cologne's authority after their initial exchange of formalities. Which meant she had to oblige her, and apparently submit to examination at this male physician's hands. As directed, she climbed up onto the examination table and steeled herself for his touch. 

            "Is this really necessary?" she asked, uneasily.

            "I just want him to determine that there is no physical trauma associated with, ah, your current mental state," Cologne assured her, cautiously.

            "You mean how my memory is all fuzzy?"

            "Oh, I already have my suspicions there, child."

            "This will only take a moment, Ra…" Dr. Tofu coughed and cleared his throat, catching himself and continuing, "Fa Shen." He checked her eyes, flashing a light into them in turn experimentally, then palpitated her scalp, as well as a number of key pressure points there and elsewhere on her body. As she realized that he was assessing a catalogue of points that could influence mental, emotional, physiological and metaphysical altered states, she was both impressed and a bit alarmed. What did they think might have happened to her that the doctor was verifying the integrity of her ki?

            "What are you looking for?" she asked, perturbed. 

            "You, ah, don't seem to remember it, but I have been treating you for a preexisting condition," Tofu responded abstractly, concluding his examination. Leaning back and giving her a reassuring smile. "Well, I am happy to say that there has been no unusual deterioration. Much better than I feared. Also," he turned to Cologne, "I do not see any recent evidence of physical trauma that can account for her shift in, ah, perspective."

            "Perspective?" Fa Shen stared at him. "What's that got to do with my memories being out of whack? Also, if I haven't been hit on the head, why are they messed up?" she perched on the edge of the table and her eyes passed over the people that had gathered around her. Cologne had dragged the shriveled old man up onto the table beside her and was holding him up by the collar trying to revive him. Her mysterious friend, Ukyo, stood next to Shampoo at the foot of the table, looking at her in concern, between glares at the purple-haired girl. 

            "There is a very simple explanation for your, ah, confusion," Dr. Tofu promised her, while procrastinating over actually delivering. After Shampoo presented her to Cologne, and the elder had questioned her, Cologne had excused her to confer in hushed tones with the physician, and whatever she had told him had startled him, and given him that odd look he kept fixing her with.

            "And that is?" Fa Shen demanded after a few breaths. 

            "I don't know how to tell you. If not for my recent studies into Jusenkyo curses and mythology, and Elder Cologne's counsel, I would have some difficulty even contemplating it."

            "Jusenkyo!?" she panicked. "I haven't been cursed, have I?" 

            Everyone turned to stare at her in profound discomfort. 

            Cologne carefully met her eye and asked, "Do you remember the last time you visited Jusenkyo?"

            Fa Shen felt something trying to scream at her from the back of her mind, something she knew she did not want to hear. Did not want to face. She whipped around, staring at the people around her, watching their eyes evade hers. No answer from any of them, though a few mouthed inaudible stutters of aborted explanation. She found herself turning away from them, searching for a way to escape when her eyes picked up motion by the door. Turning her head she focused on the couple who were approaching unnoticed by the rest. She hardly noticed the girl, and the uneasy feeling her presence stirred at the back of her mind, because it was so hard to glance past the boy. Her eyes locked on his face, an itch of intense recognition filling her. Then a flash, the same face, with brilliant red hair, a match for her own, glaring at her with disdain. A horrible feeling of doom accompanied the flash. Lo Shen. Her half-brother. The traitor who had tried several times to deliver her to Ergot. 

            The man who had dug her grave. 

            That last was more than she could bear to remember, but the rage that surged up within her conveniently blinded her to what she could not bear to confront. All she remembered was, if she ever laid eyes on him again, she had promised to kill him. That sounded perfectly fine. Her body coiled like a tiger, and she sprung from the table directly into his face.

            "YOU!" she roared.

            In spite of her explosive movement, and his utter surprise, he dodged her lunge at the last moment, leaving only his after-image to bear her assault. She passed through the open door behind him, and rolled to her feet in surprise. How did she miss him? He reappeared in the doorway, staring at her in shock and confusion.

            "Ranma-chan?" he inquired hesitantly.

            "DIE!!!" she shouted, racing forward indifferent to his inexplicable utterance. In the back of her mind, she recalled hearing the name a few times, and still had no clue, beyond some ability with chi, who or what this person they referred to was. To her utter amazement, the lightening series of kicks and strikes she executed were either evaded with casual twists and shifts, or absently blocked and deflected with amagurikan speed. It was inconceivable! It was horrifying! When had he mastered such techniques? How could he have ever learned them? Like any of the Musk, he was a formidable opponent at any time, but like all of them he had depended on the Shokei Fist emphasizing his animal heritage. The complex and subtle art she was witnessing as she tried to penetrate his defenses was unprecedented! Could she have mistaken some stranger for her hated brother? Gritting her teeth, she resisted the growing doubt. There was one way to prove he was Lo Shen! She summoned her chi and released a spinning ball of death right into his face. At this range, all he could do was cross his arms over his face and… Flinch, as it was harmlessly absorbed into his own aura.

            "Wha-!? What are you doing? Are you insane!?" he shouted at her. If he had not absorbed the chi attack, it would have blown the clinic apart and possibly killed everyone in it! But she was staring at him in vindication, redoubling her physical attacks. 

            "Son-In-Law! Be careful! That's Fa Shen!" Cologne called out.

            "FA SHEN!!?" Ranma gaped in abject surprise. 

            The disbelief in his voice, combined with the Matriarch's words forced her to pause. His immunity to her chi attack proved he had to be her brother. Well, from what she thought she had just seen, it was easy to reach that conclusion. An odd polarity had existed between the son and daughter of Pa Shen, which caused their chi projections to cancel each other out. Once Ergot learned to respect her chi abilities, he tried to exploit that by sending Lo Shen to subdue her. If not for the basic martial abilities her mother had forced her to learn, and a healthy pile of luck, she would have been defeated by her own brother—married to him but given in truth to his lover, Ergot, to bear the children Lo Shen could not. Would not, anyway, since he was too proud, too MUSK, to dip himself into the spring of drowned woman while it still existed. Pushing that aside, she continued to glare at him. He was the reason she had invested so much in mastering the Art. How dare he somehow surpass her! Then she did a double take. "Son-In-Law!?" she gaped in shock. "You are Shampoo's Airen!?" she laughed at the irony. The idiot blundered into a kiss of marriage with the wrong amazon!?

            "Stop laughing! And I ain't her Airen!" he glared at her. "Are you really Fa Shen?" he demanded, looking almost ill and concerned. 

            "Don't think you can fool me, Lo Shen! Dying your hair, like that's any kind of disguise!" she spat. The look of alarm, as she named him brought a feral grin to her lips. He had denied his union to Shampoo, and no one else had confirmed it. It was time to end this. 

            "I'm not him!" Ranma shouted, seeing her about to resume the offensive. Ranma-chan and Ranko had warned him that Fa Shen might mistake him for her brother, might try to kill him on sight. It had been their main argument against trying to be her, when he insisted it was the obvious solution to Ranma-chan's dilemma. He had not tapped into her buried psyche as deep as they had and had been foolish enough to doubt them. Now he had to stop her before she killed all of them! He backed off and held his hands up in submission, trying to get her to talk, but she just sneered and spat. "Wait! Gyaaah!" He was forced to stumble back from another lightening chain of lethal, knife hand attacks. 

            Falling into an acrobatic series of dodges, he crossed through the interior of the clinic and burst out through the back door into a vacant alley. Turning and launching himself over the roof tops, he vied for distance. She followed, taking to the air right after him, oblivious to the others—apart from the charred Happosai—spilling out and pursuing them. It only took her a few moments to realize she was far more skilled than she remembered. Apparently, there was a lot she had forgotten, so perhaps his sudden increase in ability was not so implausible. She let her reflexes guide her into aerial combat, flanking him, cutting across his lines of retreat to force him to engage her. Her irritation only grew, however, as he restrained himself to pure defense. His advantage in strength and his greater reach was more than enough to compensate for her speed, but he was not taking advantage of it. Why? 

            He continued to retreat until they dropped into the trees in the park. Part of her mind was disturbed at the size of the settlement, the city, she found herself in. The night was filled with brilliant lights, and she could make out buildings that towered six or seven stories, some even more. The sight had only added to her confusion and disorientation, and that only added to her fury. What the hell was going on? Where was she? The only thing she had to compare it to was the Capital of the Chinese Empire, which she had visited with her mother on tribal business during her training. She ignored his pleas and demands for her to cease, desperate to finish this business so she could begin to find answers to her severe displacement. Answers that had been on the verge of coming until he interrupted. Was there a connection?

            She glared at him, pondering without relaxing her attack. He had been surprised to hear who she was, but he had met her eyes with a look of familiarity in the clinic. He knew her, but he expected her to be ignorant of who she, and he was. "What did you do to me, you bastard!?" she suddenly demanded, cutting across his litany of appeals and entreaties. "Did you mess with my head? Is that it!? Is that why I can't remember anything about all of this!?" she gestured to the world around her in growing rage. 

            "If you would just stop fighting, I can explain what is going on!" he cried, dodging another lunge from her. "Ra… Fa Shen! You have to stop or you'll get us both killed!"

            "What were you about to call me!?" she paused, chest heaving for air, eyes narrow. The doctor had made the same mistake, almost calling her by another name. She scowled in concentration, trying to puzzle it out. Ra… Ra… She remembered his response to her initial attack, a timid question. "Ranma-chan?" Ranma-chan. Ranma. The mysterious person who had chi attacks that Ukyo had mentioned. Her. "You! Xi Fa Xiang Gao! You took away my memory! You tried to turn me into someone else!" she accused suddenly. 

            Ranma stared at her and gaped. 

            "I am NOT Ranma! I am Fa Shen!" she shouted, leaping at him, leg stretched in a flying kick. He leapt straight up to avoid her, but she rebounded off the tree behind him and flew into the air after him. Engaging him in close combat as their trajectories matched up. Finally, he began to lash out, trying to generate an escape vector while driving her into the ground. She grappled in the air, trading blows and hooking his limbs to keep them from separating. Below her, the crowd that had followed from the clinic looked upward and commented.

            "It looks like she remembers Ranma's skills," Akane noted. 

            "Much of that comes with the package, child." 

            "How did this happen?" Akane demanded, meeting Cologne's eyes.

            "Shampoo and Ukyo apparently triggered it, fighting over Ranma." 

            "Is it permanent?" 

            "I am afraid I don't know." 

            The combatants had come to ground and bounded up into the air for another locked pass. As they were coming to the ground again, Ranma managed to drive the girl into the earth by tumbling in her grasp, then flipping around to bring his heels down in the small of her back. He rebounded at once, as she rolled to regain her feet. As he sailed up, she powered up a ball of chi, then snapped her arms wide open to either side, creating a blazing ring of energy that Ranma could only dodge by diving for the center. As he did, though, she snapped her arms together in a resounding clap, sending a charged wall of hardened air to hammer him backwards into the air. 

            "I don't think I've ever seen that chi attack…" Ukyo blurted, as the sky lit up around them. Whatever the attack was supposed to do, the impact alone was not enough to phase Ranma, and the energy just soaked into him. Only Cologne's wide eyes suggested it should have been more impressive. Growling the girl flared with power then blinked out of sight, a column of spectral flame shooting straight up into the sky. Ranma landed and whipped his head around to spot where she had gone to, when she suddenly dropped out of the sky on top of him. Her body lit up once more in dazzling aura, bringing her to an instant stop at ground level, where Ranma stood until his last second evacuation. It did not save him, however, since in that instant of "impact" her body pulsed like blinding sun, and the air around her exploded outward in an earth shaking roar. It was as though she was some human bomb. After the wind blasted the bystanders and calm settled in it's wake, Ukyo croaked, "Or that one…" 

            Astonishingly, Ranma righted himself, from where he had been thrown off his feet in the concussion, and boggled at Fa Shen with a pale, twitching face. Fa Shen literally hovered over a crater even Ryouga would be impressed by and looked just as flabbergasted. She knew the nature of her brother's power, knew it's limits, and had devised those attacks specifically to bypass his immunity. Her raw chi alone could not do it, so she had harnessed natural energy, lightening (electrical) and thunder (kinetic energy), and woven it into her attacks. Because her chi controlled the attack, she was automatically protected. It was more like he was absorbing her chi, and gaining control of what she harnessed with it, than simply canceling it out. Even as her sibling, his chi should be too different to permit that!

            "Why are you absorbing my attacks!?" she cried in confusion.

            "You gonna stop tryin' to kill me so I can answer?" he demanded, taking deep breaths, and letting his mind chew on what he had observed of her techniques. Realizing that she had paused to stare at her hands, at herself, struggling to determine how her attacks had failed, he relaxed a hair more. He had figured out special attacks from direct observation before, and hoped she gave him enough time to catch on to hers before she corrected the problem and resumed her assault. Unfortunately, there was an aspect to what she had done that simply baffled him. He suspected principles as simple as those found in the Hiryuu Shoten Ha, but several levels more sophisticated in theory and practice. Keeping his eyes on her, while his mind whirled, he noticed her increasing distraction. No, not distraction. Her attention was shifting elsewhere, her eyes not seeing, while she examined herself with other senses entirely. As her attention drifted from herself to him, she frowned, meeting his eyes, but staring through him, past him, into him, or something. 

            "What is this!?" she gasped. Her reserves were notably depleted by the expenditure of chi in what ought to have been a devastating final attack. That was normal. What was not, was feeling ki pouring out of him to replenish them swiftly. Even stranger, an equal flow streamed in from elsewhere, though her and back into him. This was not just a gift of energy, but a vital, natural flow. Her mind wanted to simply reject the impossibility. Unfortunately, she could feel a hidden part of her mind focused on protecting and preserving this matrix. This boy, she realized, was not what he appeared to be. Her vision suddenly focused and allowed their gazes to meet. "Why is our ki bound together?" 

            "You can see that?" Ranma squawked. 

            "It's pretty obvious!" she snapped, glaring. Taking a deep breath and becoming angry, a palpable, categoric difference from her original fury, she marched forward and braced her hands on her hips. "You're not my brother! What is this?" 

            "Fa Shen." The calm, quiet address carried a great weight of reprobation. Fa Shen turned automatically to the elder and suddenly realized what she had done. So many strict amazon laws governing interaction with outsiders had been created just to prevent events like this one. Too many wars had begun with uninformed, emotional conflicts between strangers. By attacking this boy, with his uncanny resemblance to her nemesis, she had exposed herself to the possibility of defeat and marriage. If she had slain him, or injured him before realizing her mistake, she would have drawn the wrath of his people down on the tribe. Worse, she had engaged him under the roof of a healer, an almost universal sanctuary. She had utterly screwed up. In blushing shame, she marched over to the Matriarch, dropped to her knees and bowed low. In a voice of utter contrition, she begged for forgiveness. 

            "Elder Cologne. Please forgive my outburst." 

            "That is okay child," Cologne hopped down to her level, cupped her chin and turned her face up to smile at her, wryly. "He does resemble your nemesis." 

In a place such as Nerima, where every day some freak event or frightening confrontation between notorious individuals rocked the pillars of the community, often quite literally, two hard and fast rules had evolved. Try not to get involved, or at the very least, try not to notice or think about it, whatever it might be at the moment, and do not take anyone or anything for granted. Sadly, it seemed that in Nerima it was only possible to obey one of these rules at a time. Those individuals who could not grasp the first rule automatically fell into the category the second rule applied to most urgently. Unfortunately, a boy like Hikaru Gosunkugi tended to slip under the radar for most people. While it was true that he was not an imposing specimen of masculinity, and certainly not an outrageously powerful martial artist, he had a knack for creating really bad situations, or complicating them to the point of, well, mayhem. Apart from his obsession with Akane Tendo, which might as well have been the definition of "male" at Furinkan High School, he had a deep, abiding interest in the occult. These two interests drew him to the Tendo dojo like a moth to a bonfire. Ranma Saotome had vindicated the boy's belief in the supernatural. Often he haunted the shadows of the Tendo compound in the hope of picking up secrets about Akane, Ranma and most of all, Magic. 

            Occasionally, this unhealthy curiosity picked up something he simply had to act upon, which he was woefully unqualified to do. In those cases, he had cause to approach the very heart of darkness in Nerima. Also known as the home of the Kuno family. Tonight, because of an alarming shift in the status quo, he forced himself to brave this lion's den and confront his sometime ally, unspoken rival, and all around insanely dangerous upperclassman, Tatewaki Kuno. 

            Said bokan wielding maniac was currently rising to his feet in shock, gaping in disbelief and alarm, shouting, "What!?" 

            "It's true Sempai! I overheard it myself!" Gosunkugi cringed. 

            "Akane and the Pig-tailed-girl are having dates with Saotome and that cur, Hibiki!?" Kuno demanded, grabbing the boy by the front of his shirt and holding him in the air an inch from his nose. 

            "Yes. And they both were dressed and made up very nice. I got pictures of both of them!" Gosunkugi babbled, rapidly.

            "Show me!" the kendoist demanded, setting him back on his feet. It was a reflex action, to compose himself in preparation for the blissful thrill of seeing new images of the objects of his desires. 

            "Uh, well. I just dropped the film off to be developed. I'll have them for you tomorrow at school!" the younger boy promised, bowing effusively and cursing his haste. He knew better than to promise anything to Kuno he could not deliver at once. The fiasco that had resulted from his attempt to expose Ranma's weakness to Kuno had taught him at least that much. 

            "Very well. I expect to hear from you on this again tomorrow, Gosunkugi." Kuno got a grip on himself, shaking off the disappointment of not receiving the pictures, and focused on the problem still at hand. He proceeded to question the other boy about the details of the date and quickly frowned. Gosunkugi had not really picked up on the dates serving any useful purpose, aside from what came from any couple dating. The two couples were going separate ways, which he recalled was one of the things that had been explicitly forbidden by Nabiki in her warning. Considering that his beloved goddess was in the hands of that idiot, Hibiki, there could be no understating the danger to her. With his accursed sense of direction, he could easily lead her to her death, wandering aimlessly over the Earth. Worse, even knowing the danger, Saotome had chosen this time to try and seduce the beauteous Akane Tendo. "I must summon my sister to hear this. You will inform her, as you have informed me, of this unfortunate situation. Then, you must accompany her to ensure that Saotome's date is stopped, and the boy brought here forthwith!"

            Gosunkugi swallowed in terror, but nodded. While he feared his sempai, his belief in and practice of voodoo inspired a much greater fear of his sister, with her mastery of potions and poisons. She was far more advanced than he in the Dark Arts. He was, he had to admit, only a tad more lively than a zombie. More than once she had encountered him and assumed he was already hers to command. He obeyed her without hesitation, lest she feel compelled to make him a more obedient, and wholly undead, zombie. 

            Kuno returned, leading his sister, and paused at the door. "I must make haste lest my fair maiden beat me to the train station, and become lost to me forever because of that cur, Hibiki!" he declared. "My dear, deranged sister, I trust you to deal with Saotome and implore you not to punish the sweet, innocent Akane Tendo for his misguided efforts to seduce her! When I have rescued the Pig-Tailed-Girl, I shall return here to meet with you. Once we have assured their safety, we shall find suitable housing to keep them here in our protective custody! I bid you the best of luck, you two, in your endeavor, and urge you to make haste!" With that, Kuno disappeared.

            Kodachi turned to Gosunkugi. She noticed the faint trembling her presence always inspired in the boy, and gave an evil smile. "So," she lazily rasped, "What have you to say before I go to rescue my beloved Ranma-sama from the clutches of that wicked temptress?"

At the Nerima train station, Nodoka stood watchfully behind Ranko's shoulder and smiled as the girl strained not to rush forward and shout at the stammering Ryouga. Even though her mother had evidently prepared a number of note cards citing the proper destinations, procedures and formalities to keep in mind on their date, he had still almost bought them tickets to Yokohama, and argued with the man in the booth for fifteen minutes when he tried to explain that there was no direct train service from Nerima. Then he baffled the man by demanding to know how he was supposed to take his girlfriend all the way to Tokyo if they could not even catch a train "half that distance" to Yokohama. The man had in turn blown Ryouga's mind by carefully explaining that the regular commuter train could take them directly to down town Tokyo with no exotic stops along the way. While the baffled boy finally purchased the necessary tickets, Nodoka turned Ranko around to ask.

            "Are you feeling better, Ranko-chan?"

            Ranko allowed herself to enter a slight trance to assess her ki. She then met her mother's eyes and nodded, "I think so." The flow of ki seemed to have returned to normal, well, what passed for normal at the moment. She frowned and looked off over the horizon. _I am still worried though. One of them had to have been in a fight to use that much energy. If I hadn't spent the whole day learning to control it, I would have probably cut off the flow when that much energy was sucked out of me. _She tried to cut off her thoughts, before they began to spill out of her mouth. The only reason she had not rushed off at once to find out what the problem was, was because she had almost fainted when her ki was suddenly drained. She had recovered fairly quickly, since finding herself falling into Ryouga's arms like that had… She shook it off, and reminded herself of what she learned in bed with Copy-kun. Her body had it's own ideas about being in the arms of a protective male. The feelings that came with it were the reason she was in this silly dress and make-up, and if she did not come to terms with it now, she was in for a miserable life. 

            Her mother caught the storm of emotions that flitted across her daughter's face and sighed behind a smile. "It is not unusual for a girl to suddenly become faint when confronted with new situations and strong emotions. There is no reason to be ashamed, and I assure you, Ryouga-chan will not think any less of you for showing a moment of weakness. Quite the opposite, I would think," Nodoka encouraged. 

            "He's seen me when I'm weak," she winced. "He thought I was pathetic…" Of course, she had been Ranma, and her rival had lamented the loss of a great challenge. "He protected me, though," she added, in sudden guilt as her mother's eyes hardened on Ryouga. Nodoka turned back to study Ranko with a smile. A smile that reminded her painfully of how her father and Mr. Tendo reacted to the least hint of romance between her and… Between Ranma and Akane. Damn. She had to stop speaking without thinking, or she would end up painting herself into a marriage bed trying to cover up her slips. For the first time she asked herself if being adopted by her mother, becoming her daughter, might not be such a good idea after all. Did she really want to give her parents the power to dictate her life for her again?

            Ryouga turned and approached them, "I have our tickets. Are you both ready?" Ranko turned to look up at him and nod. Nodoka made a slight gesture from behind Ranko's back. Catching the hint a moment later, Ryouga offered his arm to the girl. Ranko glanced at it for a moment, and remembered some of the advice she had gotten from her mother. With a carefully subdued sigh, she put her hand on the crook of his arm, and let him lead her, with careful prodding from Nodoka behind them, to the platform. 


	22. Variations on a Girl and Her Curse

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Twenty-Two: Variations on a Girl and Her Curse

Even though it was a Wednesday night, and thus deep in the middle of the work week, Ranko was not the only well dressed young lady hanging on a man's arm waiting for the train. While Ryouga and herself were much younger than the majority of those crowding the platform, they were not the youngest. This fact drew a few unpleasant looks and muttered comments from Nodoka, who clammed up and smiled if either of her charges glanced over at her. It was kind of unnerving, since she was far enough away to give them the illusion of privacy, but far too close for Ranko to feel comfortable speaking openly to Ryouga. She sighed and looked down. She had intended to lay down a few rules with Ryouga, and draw him out on the subject of past… misunderstandings, but it all had too much to do with Ranma. If his name so much as tickled their lips, the woman would perk up and lean in hungrily to catch any tidbit she could about her son. Ranko glanced at the boy beside her, reading the discomfort on his face as he struggled against the urge to pace. The problem being that part about turning at each end. He would be mortified if he took a wrong turn at one extreme and ended up lost right at the start of his date. 

            He glanced back at Nodoka, who grinned and waved at him. 

            "I appreciate her helping out with reservations and such," he commented aside to Ranko. "I just wish she wasn't watching our every move."

            "I hear ya, Man," she glanced over and then back. "Look out," she barked, shoving him roughly around to her left. A spray of water flashed through his after image, followed by the bottle that had been kicked into the air by some leather clad punk. She glared in his direction, catching his eye easily, while Ryouga panted in shock and irritation.

            "Dammit! That's the fifth time!" 

            "Sheesh. Last thing I want is for Mom to see a curse in action!"

            "You'd think under a covered train platform, where no food or drinks are allowed, I'd be safe!" he grumbled, as Ranko kept him from going over to "speak" with the jerk who had almost doused him. 

            "Don't. He's just a stupid punk."

            "Yeah, but I don't like the way he's lookin' at you."

            Ranko stared at him, then glared. Before she could yell at him, she choked herself off and turned to stare down at the tracks. Getting mad at him for treating her like a girl was extremely stupid. Especially considering how worried she had been that he would not be able to see past her history as Ranma. She tightened her fist and controlled her breathing. She was about to do the impossible—or turn around and thank him—when she noticed something in the crowd. It was hard to catch all of it, but she distinctly saw a water bottle wrapped in a wad of yen being passed between two people, who had their heads together in the shadows. They were concealed for a moment as the tide of bodies between her and them shifted, but a moment later, the crowd parted and she could clearly make out the form of Nabiki Tendo. Catching Ranko's eye, she grinned, pulled another water bottle out of her backpack, opened it impudently and took a long swallow. 

            "I don't believe it!"

            "What?" Ryouga focused in on Ranko's face as the anger in her voice registered. He noticed her staring off into the crowd and followed her gaze. He quickly spotted Nabiki. "Nabiki? What's she doing here?"

            "It looks like she's paying people to splash you with water, Pork-butt!"

            "Hey!" That sounded like the Ryouga she knew! Oops. 

            "Sorry. Habit!" she bowed her head meekly, keeping her eyes on Nabiki.

            "Break it!" he ordered, glaring. 

            Ranko sighed and kicked herself mentally. "Why is she trying to sabotage our date?" she wondered, leading him back on topic. 

            Ryouga shrugged. A moment later he groaned and fixed Nabiki with a glare that could break stones. Ranko twitched and reminded herself to never, ever give him an idea like that. It was bad enough when he did that at close range! She poked him, silently demanding an answer and he sighed. "Now I know what she meant when she offered to sell me insurance for our date!"

            "Great!" Ranko snarled. "Just great! What else can go wrong!?"

            "Ranko!" Ryouga glared at her in warning. It was too late. 

            Nabiki suddenly turned and scampered out of sight just in time to avoid the spill of human bodies upended as Kuno rushed onto the platform, racing straight at the two of them. By some common instinct, the mob rapidly cleared that entire section of the platform. Ranko took one look down at what she was wearing and despaired. There was no way she could fight in this dress. Not unless she hiked it up around her waist to free her legs. Even as she grimaced and started to gather the fabric in her hands, her mother suddenly appeared between her and the charging kendoist. Ranko was momentarily blinded as the silk wrapping of her family's honor blade fluttered free before her, then she was jerking Ryouga down to keep him from being beheaded as the naked blade swung free of its scabbard. 

            "Whoops! Mustn't drop it!" Nodoka cried, losing her grip.

            "Oh shit!" Ranko wondered if anywhere was safe. 

            "Do not fear, my beloved Pig-Tailed Goddess! I have come to rescue you from the foul clutches of that cretin, Habiki!" Kuno gushed. 

            "Gyaaaa!" Ryouga saw the flash of live steel dance in front of his nose and cringed as it whipped madly around, by chance or by pure malice coming within inches of cleaving, slashing or skewering the dozen people lingering too close in curiosity, who darted away in instant terror. Nodoka finally got control of the weapon and steadied it in front of her. 

            "Oh dear! It seems Nerima just never changes! Smooth down your dress! I will protect you, Ranko-chan!" Nodoka braced herself before Kuno, surprised with the speed with which she had been moved by her maternal instincts. The very notion of allowing Ranko to hike up her dress for battle had spurred her instantly to action. However good a fighter, a young lady simply could not be allowed to do battle in her panties!

            "Mo-! A-auntie N-No-Nodoka!" Ranko tried to stop her. To her shock, Kuno responded instinctively to an opponent wielding a sword and launched into a devastating series of attacks. Even more surprising, the wild blade danced in her mother's hands, casually deflecting all of his strikes. 

            "At last! A worthy opponent rises against the Blue Thunder!"

            "Oh Dear! I really must remember to practice with this thing more often!" Nodoka cried, somewhat embarrassed but not the least upset by the kendoist's onslaught. Strangely, as the fury of Kuno's attack left her with no room to think, her swordsmanship suddenly shifted into precise, complex and devastating form. In the blink of an eye, her defense solidified. Then, with two quick movements, Kuno's bokan was flying back over the crowd and Kuno was suddenly grasping at his hakama to keep it from dropping around his ankles.

            "That- that was incredible!" he gasped, eyes crossed upon the point of the blade hovering at the end of his nose. Ranko and Ryouga stared at Nodoka in absolute disbelief. Their eyes met in silent consensus. The word they would have used was "impossible". 

            "Oh! I am so sorry!" Nodoka gasped in shock at herself. "I- I- Forgive me for meeting you with a live blade, but, you see, I simply could not allow you to attack my daught- Ranko-chan!"

            Ranko snapped her eyes back to her mother. Did she know!?

            "Y- you are the mother of the glorious Pig-Tailed-Girl!?" Kuno stared.

            "I- Well, actually…"

            "No. I can see the resemblance. Truly you are a woman of great nobility, to best a great warrior such as myself with the sword! Alas," he frowned and sighed, "there is a misunderstanding. I could never bring myself to attack one so vibrant, so pure as your daughter!"

            "Except for EVERY FREAKIN' TIME YOU SEE ME!!!" Ranko shouted right in his face, flushing with anger.

            Nodoka, oblivious to that, stuttered, "Ah… well… actually… I don't have a daughter. Oh, how I wish… but no."

            Kuno and Ranko turned to stare at her, confused by her statements. There was a frightened, hopeful look on Ranko's face. Nodoka paused to study her, conscious of the fact that she had not intended to reveal her feelings for the girl. Unfortunately, in the heat of the moment, she had betrayed herself. Ranko looked at her, eyes moist, clearly afraid of what she might say. Nodoka stepped forward and put her hand on the girl's shoulder and looked her in the eye. 

            "I wish you were my daughter," she smiled cautiously, hoping the girl would not reject this overture. She seemed so desperate for a mother. "I suppose it's time I admitted that to you." Ranko seemed speechless, but the fear and anxiety seemed to wash out of her. Nodoka sighed and turned to Kuno. "If, as you claim, you mean this girl no harm, how do you explain this attack?"

            Kuno straightened himself, and finished retying the waist of his hakama. "My Lady. I am saddened to learn you are not this girl's mother, for sooth, I would at once beg for her hand in marriage!"

            "Y- you want to marry Ranko?" Nodoka stammered in surprise. She turned to stare at the girl, well aware of how modest and feminine she looked now. Considering how she habitually presented herself, Nodoka had despaired of her having any suitors, not to mention one so well spoken and cultured as this! "I was not aware that she was in such a relationship! Do you claim to be courting her?"

            "Indeed, I would say nothing else! E're now we have dated several times. Most recently the day before last!"

            "And you have proposed to her?" she covered her mouth in concern.

"Nay, as I have yet to learn of her true parentage, I have instead taken upon myself the task of protecting her from the unspeakable depredations foisted upon her by curs like him," he pointed at Ryouga. Turning to face the lost boy, he accused, "Often have I heard of you seeking to force your attentions upon young women, most notably the fair Akane Tendo! I will not permit you to defile the immaculate beauty of my fair goddess!"

            "K- Kuno!" Ranko could hardly speak, she was so irate.

            Ryouga growled and began to stalk towards the kendoist. "I should kill you for saying such things!" he spat, beginning to glow a menacing purple. "No one has done more to demean and offend her than you!"

            "Ha! It is to laugh! Truly you are lost if you do not know that your rival, your most hated foe, did warp and exploit their curse to bind her to him! Even so far as to force her to assume his name and dress in his clothes!"

            "WHAT!!!" Nodoka reared up above the boys, enshrouded in a column of flames. She stared at Ranko, nailing her with a look that sent a chill into her heart. "Do you speak of Ranma Saotome!?"

            "I could speak of no other, I assure you, Madame!"

            Nodoka heaved several angry breaths, still staring at Ranko. "What is this curse you speak of!?" she demanded.

            Kuno turned and studied her. He bowed his head, "It would be unseemly to speak of such a thing, especially before the girl herself. Honor forbids me from speaking on this matter without her leave."

            Nodoka turned her glare on him and he visibly quailed. "Absolutely. However, as it happens that Ranma Saotome IS my son, and you have impugned his character with this accusation, I would think it wise that you beg her leave to speak of it, so you may explain this insult to my family's honor!"

            Poor Kuno could not contain himself. This women, this noble lady who had bested him with the sword, was the mother to his hated rival? Having seen the boy's father he had naturally been confidant in Saotome's low birth, but, here before him stood a vision of grace and beauty and fire even his beloved Pig-Tailed-Goddess paled beside. He swallowed with great difficulty, and turned to Ranko. "Pig-Ta…"

            "Her name is Ranko! Do her the courtesy of using it!"

            "Ra-Ranko," he gulped, stammered and pushed on, "I beg your leave…"

            "You mean to tell her what Nabiki told you for FORTY MILLION YEN!?"

            He swallowed hard again and nodded. 

            Ranko smiled at the glare he got from her mother for that admission. No doubt Nabiki would hear about this too. Summoning up all the ice she could, which was impressive enough with the Soul of Ice technique at her disposal, she glared at him. "I didn't wanna mess up Ranma's life by revealing the nature of the curse afflicting… us. I won't let you spill it just to attack Ranma. After all, you admitted to his face, he's just a victim, like me, so he's really innocent of all that crap you always accuse him of, right Kuno?" Kami, she hoped this went off right. While it was a lie, it was safer than the truth could ever be, and it would not come from her lips. 

            Nabiki, who had edged forward to listen to this confrontation stared at Ranko with carefully hidden respect. Occasionally, hints of a brain emerged, but this was quite different. Nabiki decided she must finally be rubbing off on the girl. She had admired how Ranko maneuvered the situation, explicitly identifying the rumor Nabiki herself had created and using it to evade the fatal truth. Better, she forced Kuno to recant his accusations about Ranma, removing the stain to his honor in her mother's eyes. If she kept this up, Nabiki would have to start keeping a serious eye on her. 

            Kuno turned to Nodoka and cleared his throat. "From the day I became acquainted with Ranma Saotome and the… and Ranko, I was concerned about the connection between them. Though he had stolen the affections of the noble Tendo Akane…" he paused as he remembered that the engagement he so strenuously opposed had been arranged by their parents. It might not be a good idea to speak ill of that. "Ahem. Though he was… engaged… to Akane, he seemed to…" he glanced at Ranko nervously. "He seemed to be, ah, somewhat intimately involved with, er, Ranko."

            Nodoka turned to look at Ranko, who blushed, remembering the lewd imagery Kuno had evoked, protesting Nabiki's revelation that she and Ranma were as one body and soul. She also remembered Nodoka questioning her about her affection for Ranma. She swallowed nervously. 

            Kuno swallowed some air and continued, "I endeavored to intercede, hoping to free Ranko from Ranma's influence. It was unspeakable for a girl of her beauty and passion to be bound so utterly to his influence, even to the point of assuming his name, his manner—even his wardrobe—and fighting in his battles! Though I ached to know her name, her true identity, she was compelled to insist that she must answer to HIS name!"

            Nodoka was really staring at Ranko now, who trembled a little, but could not utter a word. Silently she begged the insufferable windbag to get to the point and clear up this mess!

            "Why?" Nodoka gasped, grabbing her and forcing Ranko to meet her gaze. "I can see by your face you do not dispute these claims! Why are you so intimate with my son!?"

            Ranko just could not speak. Even Nabiki bit her lip and shook her head when the Saotome matriarch glanced at her. Kuno finally came through, "I asked that every night for months, until at last I learned the horrible truth. Though I know not the exact cause, and I must beg you believe as I speak of magics most dark and foul, I tell you it is a curse."

            Nodoka looked puzzled and studied his face. The conviction there and in his words was disturbing. "Magic? A curse?"

            "Alas, though it would be a far better thing than to contemplate such a possibility, in this past year I have myself witnessed such things of legend and lore that I cannot deny the influence of magic, even in this modern world. Thus, your son and this brave girl did somehow encounter some dangerous artifact that has bound their fates to each other. It is a damnable curse, that drives them to seek love, though it denies them any hope of loving each other. I have learned that were they to be separated from each other, or dare to embrace each other as lovers, they must perish," Kuno cried, sagging to the ground. 

            Nodoka gasped. "Is this true?"

            Nabiki cleared her throat and stepped forward, "I don't know how to explain it better, but the facts are certain. The boy we call Ranma, and the girl we call Ranko are bound together spiritually. If one were to die tonight, the other would certainly follow. The intimacy they share is not what you might think, though it is part of their curse to know more and less of each other than lovers. I suppose you could say, they were so close that Ranko had to deny her own femininity to protect Ranma's masculinity," Nabiki dared with inspired genius. Oh, the three were going to owe her big time for this!

            Nodoka heard that and whipped around to Ranko. She opened and closed her mouth in shock a few times before she got out, "Is this truly the reason for how you dress and act?"

            Ranko actually laughed in honest relief, "Actually, yeah."

            "You sacrificed your own womanhood to protect my son's manliness?" Nodoka was flabbergasted. She could not, in her own odd way of viewing things, think of a more noble sacrifice a girl could make. "And yet, you do not love my son?" it seemed implausible.

            Ranko sighed, "I suppose you can't understand it just looking at it. With the curse it's like… like we're the same person. So, yeah, I guess I do love him, but it's like loving myself. I wouldn't want to be… you know… with him. It just wouldn't be… right… somehow." 

            Nodoka stepped close and fingered the dress Ranko was wearing, remembering the many times she had nagged Ranko into more feminine clothing and manners. Strangely, it was at such a time that her son had appeared acting in the most unmanly fashion. If what she was hearing was true, then she was actually partly at fault for her son's perversity. After all, if the curse forced Ranko to dress as her son, might it not also force her son to dress as Ranko? How horrifying. "But, what does this mean? Should I believe then, that because I encouraged you to dress like this and date… my son might…!?" 

            Ranko hastily cut her off, "NO!" She grabbed Nodoka's hands and looked her in the eye. "No, Mo- Auntie! No. We're working on a cure, and this is just part of testing it. Right now he is with Akane and I assure you, he is being very manly!"

            "Did you almost call me 'Mom'?" Nodoka blinked.

            Ranko sighed, "I- I… well, I guess it's safe enough to tell you now. I don't have a mother besides you. I mean, you know, through Ranma," she hastily corrected. 

            Nodoka stared at her in sudden sadness. "No mother? Oh you poor child!" she grabbed the girl and hugged her to herself. She had been right! The girl had needed her all along. Perhaps she was not her true daughter, but from what she had sacrificed for her son, she had proven herself worthy of being part of the family. As she hugged the girl, Ranko was doing her best not to cry as she crossed the threshold between her true identity and the one she had finally adopted. She almost lost it when her mother softly asked her, "Would it please you to have a mother? To be my daughter?"

            After a moment, as she got her breathing and trembling under control, she pulled back and looked at Nodoka. "I- I would like that. I- I have wanted that since I met you, I guess. But," she turned away and looked at Ryouga. "I'm not entirely free of the curse yet. Your son and I could both be lost to you at any time because of it. Maybe… maybe it is best if we wait until it's broken before we consider something like that."

            Nodoka looked puzzled. Ryouga picked up the silk wrapping that normally concealed her sword and handed it to her. Without thinking, she sheathed the weapon and quickly bundled it up. Looking at the girl the entire time, it was obvious that there was something else bothering her. Something that had not been said. "Why would it be necessary to wait?"

            Ranko considered things carefully. What they had told her mother was a lie. There were elements of truth in it, but by deceiving her things could very easily blow up in everyone's face. Sighing, she turned back, "This isn't the first time we've thought we'd found a cure. This one comes with a price we might not be able to pay. Ranma and I, we might survive this cure, but a part of us could die. The only sure way to prevent that is to allow the curse to become…"  she cut herself off. "It would change the curse to something you might not care to know of. If it came to that, the only other cure I know of would… save your son's life."

            Nodoka paused for a moment to parse that statement. Then her eyes got wide. "What about you?"

            "I… you can't lose a daughter you don't have," she turned away. "I'm not saying it has to come to that, but for people like you and Akane… If it came down to it, you'd need him more than me. That's just the way it is." There was silence all around her, painful silence shared by Ryouga, Kuno and Nodoka, and sober quiet from Nabiki. For several long moments, no one spoke, then Ranko turned and smiled at everyone, "Hey! I think our train's here! Come on, Ryouga! We need to get a move on, I am absolutely starving!"

            Nabiki looked at the cheerful red-head dragging Ryouga over to the edge of the platform and turned to look at Kuno. He was staring at the girl as if he feared she might be just an illusion. "The sad thing, Kuno, is that she's right. She'd sacrifice everything for Ranma. She doesn't really have a choice."

            "Wh- why?" he babbled, still too stunned by the revelation, and what it implied, to pursue her onto the train that was pulling up. Nodoka had hastened away from the two sophomores to take charge of the young couple, pushing aside the horrible revelations she had just absorbed, taking her cue from Ranko and smiling in anticipation of the night's delights. She had not given the Kendoist a second look. Still, she had not forgotten his proposal. He seemed to have some concerning issues, but it was not hard to see the real reason he had insulted her son. How could any boy resist such a selfless, passionate girl?

            "Come on, Kuno-chan. I better drag you on home."

In the wake of the battle in the park, the witnesses and participants quickly retreated back to Dr. Tofu's clinic. An air of tense confusion subdued them to the exchange of puzzled and worried glances and a number of aborted attempts to speak to the girl who had proven herself to be Fa Shen. She returned Akane's searching look with a friendly smile and a hesitant look of recognition, but avoided her because of Ranma who remained close to her side the entire way. Shampoo and Ukyo were too busy arguing under their breath, and Fa Shen put more distance between herself and all four teens when she heard the name "Ranma" a few too many times. It seemed strange to her to be identified as someone she had no memory of having ever been. That was enough to suggest that she had not been a victim of Xi Fa Xiang Gao shiatsu. A person did not forget what happened to them while under its influence. They only forgot what was locked away by the technique. So, her symptoms were closer to those of demonic possession. At least, if she was willing to believe that she had spent enough time living as "Ranma" to establish the identity in people's minds. As she followed Cologne into the clinic, she sighed and shook her head.

            "I don't understand what is going on," she complained aloud.

            Cologne glanced back at her thoughtfully, then directed her to resume her perch on the examination table while the others filed in around them. Fa Shen did so, frowning at the twitching body that still lay on the other half of the table. One hand shot out from the charred form of Happosai, straining to touch the pretty girl he sensed near him. Settling on the very edge to keep her distance, Fa Shen turned to look at Cologne, who had settled on a stool at her knee and waited for her attention. After studying the girl for a long moment, she cleared her throat and jogged the girl's memory.

            "Do you remember what I was saying, before we were interrupted?" 

            Fa Shen nodded. "You asked me if I remembered the last time I'd gone to Jusenkyo." She blushed, remembering her panic when the physician, Tofu, had referred to his study of Jusenkyo and she feared he was about to reveal she had been cursed. If she remembered correctly, that was one way to obtain a new personality and suffer prolonged blackouts. She found herself breaking out into a cold sweat. She noticed that once more she was the center of troubled and indirect attention. 

            "And?" Cologne prompted.

            "I visited it with my mother a few years ago," she replied easily, remembering their return from the Emperor's Court. Her mother had shown her the springs and revealed that one of them might unlock the potential her training had failed to tap. Fa Shen had considered what her mother told her and concluded that no amount of power was worth embracing a curse that would turn her into a man. Rather than speak of that, she reminded her elder, "You know we are forbidden to enter the accursed valley without special permission." 

            "Also, in times of need, warriors are allowed to use the springs to confound the enemy," Cologne corrected gently, smiling. 

            "Of course. Only a warrior of great skill can cross the valley with impunity," Fa Shen returned, remembering her training. It was a common tactic for amazon warriors to retreat from conflicts with overwhelming numbers by leading them into the valley of accursed springs. Another warrior might be able to pursue across the bamboo poles, but he would still have to be cautious, and mere soldiers were doomed if they dared to march through the springs. 

            "Have you ever had occasion to use this path of retreat?" 

            "I don't th…" Fa Shen trailed off, her eyes narrowing as she sensed the deliberation of these questions. Cologne was not seeking information from her. She already had it. She was prompting Fa Shen to recognize that information for herself. That meant… With widening eyes, she gasped, "Yes. I did." 

            With that admission, she felt a door opening in her mind. The hunting party she had been assigned to had stumbled into an ambush. They had fought their way free, but hundreds of Musk warriors were pursuing them. Fa Shen had felt that the traditional escape route would not work, but the senior member of the party silenced her and led them, and their enemies, to the source of their conflict. The image of rushing through the forest, breaking into the clear to see all of Jusenkyo spreading out under a thick blanket of fog, played through her inner eye. The tops of the poles could be seen above the dense layer of moisture. For a moment, that had made her feel hopeful. All but the best of their pursuers would think twice about daring a crossing under such conditions. 

            "Do you remember what happened?" Cologne's voice intruded on the memory. Fa Shen refocused her gaze on the old woman, and felt the back of her mind screaming for her not to look for an answer. 

            Unfortunately, the scene was already playing out. Her people had been mistaken to believe they had discovered the identities of all the traitors in their midst. They had missed dozens; girls who had secretly been boys the entire time they had been growing up. How did this happen? The Musk had tempted amazon mothers who desired strong daughters, offering the use of the Chisuiiton to seal the forbidden transformations. Later, those girls were approached and confronted with their true nature, pressured into acting as spies for the Musk. Her friends. Why had they betrayed her? Because her enemy, her nemesis, had control of the power to lock and unlock their curses. And what had been their reward for leading her into this trap in Jusenkyo? They had been denied the touch of the Kaisuifuu, laughed at and mocked by men who were descended from animals. She shuddered. Not just mocked, but raped. All of them had been raped. Except for herself. She closed her eyes and covered her face. 

            "I died," she finally answered in a small voice. "…" She had opened her mouth to speak, but no words would form. She was trapped in the final moments of her life, as they played out in her memory. Her eyes locked on the boy her rage had focused on, and she saw a reflection of her own horror, as if he too could see her death unfolding. The girl beside him, Akane, stared at her in painful sympathy. Fa Shen stared around and looked at the rest, and discovered that none of them were truly shocked by her revelation. They all knew. They saw her, talked to her, touched her or even fought with her, but they had known all along that she was dead. The implication hit her like an avalanche. Curling up on herself, hugging her knees to her chest and staring at the unfamiliar clothes she had awakened wearing, she fought to keep from screaming. Words finally came spilling out in a rush, "I don't understand. I mean, I should have realized when I found myself in such a strange land. Everything is unfamiliar. Is this the after life?" She focused on the teens in the room and tried to console herself with the fact that she was not the only one struck down so young. 

            "No child. This is the future." Cologne's simple statement rang in the silence for a moment. Fa Shen swallowed and jerked around to stare at her incredulously. 

            "Wha- How can that be?" she cried, the numb acceptance that had only just begun to form shattered by the ridiculous assertion. 

            Cologne sighed and proceeded to tell her the history of the world she had grown up in. Speaking of her own birth twelve-hundred years after Fa Shen's death, and growing up with the legends of past heroines and the particular legend of the prodigy no one could forget, because so many had been cursed in her image over the ages. A virgin girl who was, through those surrogates, the mother to hundreds and ancestor of thousands. A girl who, according to the rarest legends of Jusenkyo, might one day be resurrected through one of those cursed by her grave. Then, while the girl was struggling to deal with that, the old woman mentioned the birth of a boy named Ranma Saotome, sketching his brief life, the torturous training he underwent, and the foolish decision of the father to take his son to Jusenkyo. 

            "So, this young man was knocked into the spring where you perished. Like so many before him, but few in his generation, he took your form. When I first saw him, I recognized the possibility and watched him as commanded by your mother's last wish. I held little hope of your resurrection, I confess, because I could not imagine you being reincarnated as a foreigner or a male. I see now my own pride blinded me," Cologne concluded. 

            Fa Shen sat there stiffly, struggling against belief, but as her resistance began to collapse she was left to confront the final implications of the Matriarch's tale. The key to her resurrection was her reincarnation, who and what she was in the present tense. She flushed darkly then went cold all over. She stretched out and looked at herself, and suddenly realized why her clothes fit her so terribly. They were cut for a taller person, with rather different proportions. "I- I'm a BOY!?" she gasped jumping to her feet. "NO!!!" 

            "In that body," Cologne interrupted her, trying to calm her by explaining, "only when you are doused with hot water." She made a gesture and Fa Shen whipped around to see Dr. Tofu standing there with a pitcher of water. Before she could object, he raised it over her head and poured. She felt the hot water, and an itching tingle passing through her body. Something like a bolt of lightening shot through her nervous system. She convulsed and began to drop unconscious. The reaction was as fast as the transformation, and as Tofu lunged forward to catch the drenched boy, he seemed to regain his balance and clap his hands to his head. 

            "Oh, my head!" he moaned, obviously reeling in confusion. Centering himself, and bracing one hand on the edge of the examination table, he squinted up at everyone, "What happened?" 

            "Fa Shen?" Dr. Tofu inquired cautiously. 

            "Fa…?" the boy stared with wide eyes, unutterable disbelief on his face.

            "Ranma?" the doctor tried again, looking more concerned. 

            "Oh no. I turned into her, didn't I?" Ranma-kun moaned. 

            "Quite entirely. How very peculiar that she'd just vanish like that." Dr. Tofu frowned and set the pitcher down. Everyone was staring at Ranma-kun in confusion, though the teens all showed obvious relief. Before anyone could say anything, Dr. Tofu picked up the pitcher beside the one he had just set down and tipped it over the boy's head, dousing him in cold water. 

            "Hey! What did you do that for?" Ranma-chan snapped, blinking the water out of her eyes angrily and pulling the fabric plastered to her breasts away from her skin. By pure reflex, she began to wring her shirt and pants out while Tofu studied her curiously.

            "Fa Shen?" he asked experimentally. The girl jerked and glared at him.

            "You tried to turn me back into her!?" she shouted, indignant. 

            "Where did she go?" Akane covered her mouth after blurting the question on everyone's mind. There was another round of confused looks and shrugs. Cologne was frowning intently, as Dr. Tofu rubbed his chin in thought. Though concern remained on everyone's face, there was more on the minds of those two than just relief that the old Ranma had not been utterly lost. 

            "This is not good," Cologne met the doctor's eye. She ignored the glare from the cursed girl and stated her conclusion. "They're operating as two separate personalities." 

            Dr. Tofu nodded and set the second pitcher down. Ukyo swallowed and edged forward. It was obvious he had set the water up to demonstrate the curse to Fa Shen. Equally obvious that he had not considered the shock would allow Ranma to resurface. Glancing at the second pitcher, and then at Ranma-chan, she ventured.

            "Were you hoping she would come back with her proper form?" 

            "No. But then, I wasn't expecting her to vanish because of his form, so I was prepared to be wrong. Now I have established that her control was not dependant on the curse," Tofu replied, confirming her thoughts for everyone in the room. He sat on a stool and regarded Ranma-chan calmly. Ranma-chan tried not to glare back. She might have wondered if the other girl could only surface while the curse was active too. Tofu slapped his knee, as he came up with a hypothesis. "Apparently, this is similar to the nekoken. It has a trigger, but the shock of the transformation can override her possession of the body." 

            "Is it likely to happen again?" Ukyo shuffled nervously, catching a look from Shampoo. 

            "Probably. Ranma-chan, do you remember being her?" 

            "No," she shook her head, looking scared but trying to keep a lid on it. "One second I was watching Shampoo and Ukyo fight, and the next, I was in the clinic, as a guy." 

            "What was the last thing you remember, before blacking out?" 

            "They were shouting stuff at each other and me, and I was shouting back. I think I said, 'I AM Fa Shen, even if I don't remember it' and started to get light headed. I tried to get their attention, and asked them to stop fighting, when someone said it was time to put a stop to this. Before I could look to see who spoke, I was getting drenched with hot water." 

            "Very interesting." Dr. Tofu bowed his head to think again. Ranma-chan sat there nervously, her eyes darting around the room. She could remember the strange sensation of a presence suddenly looming over her shoulder, the understanding of words, a thought, she was positive did not come from her. Knowing that the threat was within made it very hard for her to sit still. Of all the ways she might have become Fa Shen, this scared her the most. She had never even considered she might be shoved aside, locked away and oblivious to everything around her. If that was how it was going to be, she might as well be dead! Rather than follow that line of thought, she continued to stare all around her, until her eyes fell upon the charred form on the bed beside her. 

            "What happened to Happosai?" she prodded the old pervert.

            "You… ah," Cologne began, then cleared her throat to continue her reply. "Fa Shen, did not, ahem, approve of his greeting." 

            "It looks like he was struck by lightening!" 

            "That's not a bad description of it." 

            "She decked him with a bolt of lightening!?" Ranma-chan stared up at Cologne in surprise. She had been told that Fa Shen had been a master of chi manipulation but this was way beyond what she had suspected. She created lightening! "Is that possible?" 

            "You've created tornados with chi, why should lightening come as a surprise?" Ukyo frowned, not seeing the reason for Ranma-chan's disbelief. 

            "I've never seen anyone else do that!" Ranma-chan retorted.

            "What about Kuno?" Akane asked with a grin.

            "Er…" Ranma-chan and Ranma both reacted to that one. They exchanged a look, aware that they had synched up, then looked over at Cologne. The old woman realized she was supposed to confirm that the eerie coincidence of lightening punctuating Kuno's pre-battle monologues as just that, mere coincidence. She grinned at them.

            "In his case, it's an unconscious talent," she informed them. Cackling at the look of terror that flashed in their eyes, she waved off their concern. "I doubt he could use it against you in combat." 

            "What a relief!" they sagged. 


	23. Those Who Help and Those Who Help Themse...

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Twenty-Three: Those Who Help and Those Who Help Themselves

Dr. Tofu had a rather exclusive practice, working almost exclusively by himself, so his clinic was rather small. The cozy atmosphere was one of its charms. With eight people crammed into an examination room, with half the lights blown out, cozy was perhaps a bit understated. Ranma-chan had moved to a different exam table to distance herself from Happosai, who Dr. Tofu had finally gotten around to diagnosing. The withered old man had been sent for quite a loop by Fa Shen's special attack, but his lingering problem was that, electrically charged or not, she had thrust a tremendous amount of feminine energy into the old man and he was, to paraphrase the good doctor, rather high. Currently, he was covered with a blanket and sleeping it off. Ranma had taken a moment to talk with Ranma-chan about what had happened. He ended up being distracted when the hot water he brought to her was refused, and Shampoo and Ukyo cut in to insist that she change back to normal. 

            "But, if you stay a girl, that- that- amazon might come back, Ran-chan!"

            "Yeah," Ranma-chan sighed. "I'm sure that's all you're worried about."

            "Airen very strange! Act like no want be boy again!" Shampoo frowned.

            "Shampoo very strange! Act like no understand never be Ranma again!" Ranma-chan turned on her, mimicking her broken Japanese with caustic sarcasm. "Just leave me alone! I don't need anyone pushing me around right now!" She jumped up and slipped out from between them. 

            Akane was looking at her in agonized concern. Ranma felt a spike of angry resentment flare as he noticed this, and tried to throttle it. For a second he felt like he would welcome the curse back if it meant Akane looked at him like that. Like some one real, in real pain. Someone she cared about. It was maddening. He was cured, he still had his identity, he would soon be able to face his mother without shame, and Akane was still promised to him. Unfortunately, even he wondered if he was the real thing. The way Ukyo had acted that afternoon, the way she and Shampoo were fighting over the "real" Ranma, the odd looks he got from Akane from time to time, it was all starting to get to him. Worse, the "real" Ranma had swallowed his pride and bowed out. Or rather, her pride. He had sensed it on their return from the mansion. He had not understood, when Cologne asked him, why he called the original "her". He thought about it later, and realized that from the moment Ranma-chan had embraced him there on the road, in the rain, she had really been a girl in his mind. He could even remember, from before the copies' return to the mirror, how he had prepared himself to give everything up for the boy Nodoka and Akane deserved. He did not even question the change in her. It made sense, if you had to stop being someone, you had to stop wanting what they wanted, being what he was. When you gave up everything you cared about, you would have to be grateful for anything that was left. 

            It would have been different if it had been about wanting to change his life, or wanting to create a new identity for himself. He had fantasized about that many times, following some particularly painful or demeaning ordeal with his father. That was certainly how Ukyo and Shampoo saw it. He stepped in between them and glared at them. "You just don't get it, do you!?" he paused, until they were both staring at him. Before they could retort, he continued, "Original or no, that's not Ranma anymore! She's more like the real Ranko right now, or who she'd be if she had always been a girl but was raised as a boy. When she gave up being Ranma, she gave it all up, rights and responsibilities… Even you two."

            "What!?" Ukyo snapped alert. "That's stupid!"

            "Shampoo no give herself to Airen twin!" the amazon was instantly enraged. She shifted posture to attack.

            "If you mean that, you better not fight me," Ranma warned calmly. 

            Shampoo blinked and subsided in realization. He might not be Ranma in her eyes, but she had seen him fight Fa Shen, and knew he could easily beat her. She had heard of how certain amazons had ended up married to twin brothers because of circumstances such as this. 

            "Akane mentioned something to me about what you said to her, Ukyo, and I agree," he turned to his old friend with a sad smile, "I don't think it's fair that she's sorta being forced to be a girl. If she chose it, even if I can't imagine her wanting to, I'd say it was fine. This isn't a choice between bein' a guy or a girl, though. You don't want her to be a guy, you both want her to be Ranma, and she's already given her word she wouldn't do that! You're both pushin' her to go against that promise!" 

            The pair stared at him in anger and confusion. 

            "You have got to be joking! Why would he make a promise like that!? Who did he make that promise to!?" Ukyo shouted in despair.

            "It's not a joke. Cologne warned us about what could happen if we fought over being Ranma. Ranma made a promise that that would not happen with us. One suicide contract is enough to deal with in a lifetime. As for who he promised, well, I suppose that would be me, since he made the promise to himself. Man, that's weird."

            "No offense, but, you're a copy!" Ukyo cried.

            "Spatula girl right, very good copy, but still is just copy!"

            He had expected it, and braced himself, but it still stabbed him to the quick. It was too bad he could never have imagined what it would be like before it happened. He might have stayed in the mirror, trapped by the curse, never a true man again. It was not as bad as the idea of never being a true "Ranma" again. He took a calming breath, to keep the pain from becoming anger. "Except for the curse, there isn't anything different about me now than before that stupid mirror. You wanna know something about Ranma!? It would be nice not to have to be him sometimes! Maybe I wouldn't have everyone trying to dictate my life for me anymore!" Another deep breath, the anger kept rising up. "Look, it's not a bad thing that you care for her- him- whatever. It's HER right now, and if you have a problem with that…" he paused as the conversation with Ryouga that morning popped into his head. "You know, she doesn't know who or what she wants to be. Akane said this about Ranko, and it sorta applies to Ranma-chan: She'll never be Ranko and want to be a girl. She has to be a girl and want to be Ranko. That confused the hell outta Ryouga, but it kinds makes sense to me. Ranma-chan can deal with bein' a girl or a boy, but with no sense of the person she wants to be, it doesn't matter much which one she is.

            "If you want her to be a guy, so you can marry him, you need to help her figure out who that guy is and why she might wanna be him," Ranma suggested, scratching his head and wondering if it all came out right. Shrugging he concluded, before walking away, "If you can't do that, then just leave her alone so she can figure it out for herself."

            Ranma-chan was across the room, talking with Akane. She was relieved that Ranma had stepped in to talk to Shampoo and Ukyo. She had no idea what he was saying to them, but at least he was giving her a breather. Akane was a bit more receptive to her main concern tonight. Fa Shen's appearance had rocked her to the core. She had pushed the fear of what happened to her during that aside and approached Akane for an answer to a question she had been pondering before hand. She felt calm enough now to ask, "So, what was she like?"

            Akane studied her a moment, before thinking back, "Well, she seems incredibly powerful, for one thing! According to Dr. Tofu she used her aura to fill the room with an electrostatic charge to set up Happosai for some kind of lightning bolt attack. She also fought Ranma with some other impressive chi attacks, but no one's explained how she did that bomb thing, or what the big energy ring attack was supposed to do. Seems she created those attacks to fight some guy like Herb. Ukyo says she talks and acts like an amazon, except that she's polite when she isn't violent and kind of shy around guys. She was really apologetic about fighting with Ranma when she calmed down, and was being friendly and smiling with me. She really took the news of her death hard, and she doesn't seem to like the idea that she was reincarnated as a boy."

            "Yeah, somehow that doesn't surprise me. From the memories I've experienced so far, she had to put up with a lot of the same stuff you did because of Kuno," Ranma-chan sighed. "If I was still the old me, I would have freaked over bein' told I was a girl in a previous life. I get the feeling that her life was as messed up as mine; people tryin' to force her into marriage, people tryin' to kill her all the time. I wonder if her mom was as crazy as Pops though?"

            "Well, she did say that her mother took her to Jusenkyo once," Akane grinned. "She didn't say if she'd been cursed though."

            "I doubt she was, Akane-chan," Dr. Tofu interrupted. Neither Ranma-chan nor Akane had paid attention to him sitting nearby the whole time. Considering the topic of the overheard conversation, he felt his input would be welcome. "When I mentioned my study of Jusenkyo she got upset and wanted to know if she had been cursed. I don't think she would have been as shocked if she had experienced something like that before. She would have asked what kind of curse, first, I imagine."

            "What did you think of her, doc?" Ranma-chan looked up at him.

            "I think she was a very nice, very confused girl."

            "Ah, well, I'm used to the second part at least," she sighed.

            "You seem to have the first part down too, Ranma-chan!" he smiled at her. Seeing her reaction, he started laughing. He winked at Ranma as he slipped over toward them. "Oh yes, I have noticed the change in your personality. I hoped to talk with you about what you are going through. I am sure you have a lot of questions and anxieties about it. Fortunately, I devoted one of my sabbaticals to transgender therapy on the chance something like this might come up as the result of your curse."

            Everyone who heard that looked a little shocked.

            "You expected me to turn into a girl!?" Ranma choked, standing just behind Ranma-chan, waiting for her to finish talking with Akane. 

            "Until recently, you did turn into a girl. Several times a day," Tofu reminded him, trying to stifle his chuckling. "However, my research was not because I expected you to adopt a feminine perspective, but to deal with issues arising from being a man in a female body, even on a temporary basis. My intentions were simply to be of use in resolving any conflicts between gender and identity you might experience. That means I may be of some use to this Ranma-chan, here," he explained, putting a hand on that girl's shoulder. 

            Ranma-chan blushed. In a way, it was encouraging to know. She had been hoping she could speak to someone about what was going on, and her attempts to confide in her friends and former fiancées had been complicated and painful for everyone involved. With Tofu, she might even be able to unload all the mental mayhem caused by inheriting the unique experiences of Copy-chan and Copy-kun. The two sex fiends had opened every door that Ranma had strained to avoid, and there was no way for her to restore her ignorance. The minute her mind was not occupied with her current life or death struggle, the topic of sex loomed rather large and penetrating. Full of innuendos and really bad puns, but, most dangerously, a host of powerful temptations. It absolutely burned her up that she often could not look in Ranma's eyes without fantasizing about kissing him, caressing him, undressing him, and of course remembering in detail doing those very things! She stared down at her feet and wondered if… An image of Ryouga came just as easily. _"Do you wanna make love with me?" _she remembered saying, and meaning it. 

            She gulped. Oh, Kami! Ranko was really in for it! 

            She looked up and met Ranma's eyes. Her insides began to melt. With a staggering effort, she shoved these thoughts and feelings aside and frowned at him. "Aren't you supposed to be on a date with Akane?" she demanded. 

            He blinked. "Oh! Yeah! We only came here to warn you!"

            "What?"

            "Mom showed up at the dojo and found out about Ranko's date. She jumped in and insisted on playing chaperone, so Ryouga wouldn't drag her off to Egypt or something. She's going to spend the night there, so we have to sleep somewhere else," he informed her. 

            "Oh! That's just great! That is FAN-TAS-TIC!" she growled, hiding the stab of pain she felt. The one person Ranko was real to, that Ranko mattered to, was no longer thinking of her as Ranko. She was totally unprepared for her emotional reaction. She wanted to fall down and cry, but there were too many people watching her. Her hands fisted, her knuckles going white with tension, and warm pools filling her palms as her nails bit through them. When she could control her voice she nodded, "Alright. Thanks for warning me. You two better get going, or you won't have time to do anything fun." 

            They looked at her, feeling something odd in her response, but she just bowed her head and looked away. Ranma jerked. He knew that pose. It screamed, "Please don't throw me in the pit, Poppa! Please!? See!? I am not crying! I am not afraid. I'll do anything you want! Please don't give me to the cats…"

            "Ranma…" he began.

            "I'd better go talk to Shampoo and Ukyo," she interrupted. "They've been talking to each other and giving me odd looks. I'll see if I can scrounge a place for us to sleep by the time you get back, so don't worry about it."

            "I-if you're sure…" he tested.

            "'S not a problem. See you when you get back," she smiled, though it did not touch her eyes, and walked away. It was hardly reassuring, but it offered no room for a response. 

            Ranma turned to Akane and gave her a similar smile, "She's right, we should get a move on."

            After a moment, Akane nodded and took his hand. They walked out of the clinic and into the cold night air. For a while they walked in silence, letting what had happened sink in while they tried to decide what it meant for the future. If the past few days were anything to go on, guessing what tomorrow might hold was simply beyond them. As it became evident to each that they could not settle their troubled thoughts, it was inevitable that they would start talking about it. The only alternative was to talk about their date, and that meant talking about themselves. Even that came back around to what was happening, and the uncertainty that now surrounded the topic of Ranma. 

            "That was something I never expected," Akane broke the silence.

            Ranma looked at her, and then noticed they were passing back through the part of the park that had been trashed by the battle. He frowned, remembering the efforts of his counterparts to warn him about Fa Shen. "They told me she would probably attack me on sight," he replied a bit sheepishly.

            "Really?" she glanced over in surprise. "I remember Ranma worrying about becoming Fa Shen, but that was just about having her memories. She didn't really go into what she had already remembered. Do you have any idea why she went ballistic like that?"

            "Uh, I think so. She had a brother who was a Musk warrior. They didn't get along very well, and he betrayed her a lot. He even dug the spring she drowned in. Seems he looked a lot like me. I should have believed them. I have one memory from when she died. He was there to watch her die, and when she looked at him, I could feel her hatred," he confessed.

            "Oh. I think Cologne mentioned some of that when she told us about Fa Shen's history," Akane murmured. It was funny how her brain had refused to associate the spoken legends with the girl who had possessed Ranma-chan, until she was reminded of it. One usually did not need to associate ancient history with current events. For a moment she imagined being drowned in a spring and waking up over a thousand years later. Not likely to happen, but it was unnerving to think of what it would be like. "The idea of Ranma being taken over by her completely like that is frightening."

            "When I go n- ne- neko, I don't know it. Things jump around suddenly and I have no idea what happened while I was possessed. It's not that scary when it happens—I mean, the blacking out part—but I used to wonder about never coming out of it," he commented, offering some perspective. "This seems to be the same, so actually she's sort of used to it. Once she figures out the trigger, she can probably keep it from happening. Either she can avoid what causes it, or she can fight to keep control. Of course, Fa Shen is in all of us, so we all need to keep our guard up."

            "I didn't think of that. Do you think it could happen to you?"

            "Sure," he rubbed the back of his head, then shrugged off the nervousness roused by the idea. "Of course my Fa Shen would probably freak out to find herself turned into a guy!" he laughed ruefully. "I doubt she'd wanna come back after the first time."

            "That's not funny."

            "I know."

            "There you are, Ranma-Sama!" a painfully familiar voice intruded from the darkness. From out of the trees, Kodachi leapt towards them, her ribbon lashing out. As they jumped apart to dodge the strike, the silhouette of a boy fell out of the tree Kodachi had been perched in and crashed to the ground with a sharp yelp. The gymnast landed gracefully a few feet from where Ranma and Akane had been standing, and laughed, "Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho! Did you think I would stand by while you endanger my dear Ranma-Sama!?" She leveled an accusing finger at Akane, "Once I have taught you a lesson, I will see to it that you cannot harm him again!"

            "How are you going to do that exactly!?" Akane demanded, fuming.

            "I shall defeat you, of course!"

            "Idiot. I mean, how do you plan to 'protect' Ranma!?"

            Even more so than her brother, Kodachi was easily diverted into verbal sparring. With neither Ranma nor Akane making any move toward combat, she automatically shifted into posturing and pontificating. "I shall escort him to my home, where—once my brother rescues that red-headed trollop—they shall have adjoining rooms they may reside in without fear of fatal separation!" Kodachi sneered. 

            "Scary," Ranma quipped, "that almost sounds like they're trying to be helpful." He shuddered and shook his head, "It also sounds like they plan to throw us both in padded cells." 

            Akane crossed her arms and snorted. "The house probably comes equipped with them."

            "Enough!" the gymnast went taut with fury. Incensed by the insulting remarks, particularly from Ranma, her mind rapidly contrived a defense for his perceived contempt, neatly shifting the blame for it to Akane, who had clearly been poisoning his mind against her! She sprung into motion and lashed out at her rival, "It is time for me to punish you, Akane Tendo!"

            While Akane dove out of the way, Ranma shifted his weight, leaning casually out of the path of the clubs and ribbons Kodachi assailed them with. Treacherous as always, her "straying" attacks had a purpose, and became more obviously designed to incapacitate the elusive boy. Out of pure frustration, Kodachi focused all of her attention on "accidentally" subduing Ranma. This freed Akane to collect herself and nurse her temper.

            "Are you going to fight her?" Akane growled at Ranma.

            "You know I don't like to fight girls," he shrugged, ignoring Kodachi to look at Akane. Not that he stopped dodging either, his hands shoved into his pockets and a minor scowl of irritation on his face. When he bounced close enough for a stage whisper, he added, "Even the psychotic ones."

            "So it's up to me?" Akane developed an eager, evil grin. 

            "Is this how you rescue people!?" he glared at Kodachi. The gymnast had stopped her assault to stare at him in disbelief and catch her breath. He came to a stop next to Akane. He slipped his hands out of his pockets and studied them for a moment, "I never thought I'd miss turnin' into a girl!"

            "You're an idiot, you know that?" Akane rolled her eyes.

            "And you're a clutz, remember?" he crossed his arms and grinned.

            "Baka!" she shouted and summoned her mallet.

            "Don't get hurt, okay?" he turned serious.

            Kodachi, staring in confusion at the whole exchange, was beginning to fume. Pouting, because Ranma refused to play along with her plans, she refocused on the foe she knew she could sink her claws into. In a poisonous voice, she challenged Akane, "I don't see your little playmate around, so don't think you have any chance against me this time, Tendo!"

            "Ah!" Ranma smacked his fist into his palm. He turned to Akane with a big grin, "So that's why she isn't going all out! You and Ukyo beat her up the other day!"

            "You're really not going to fight her!" Akane gaped. 

            "I'm hoping she just goes away, actually," he shrugged. 

            "Ranma-Sama! You wound me!" Kodachi sobbed. 

            "See? I didn't even touch her, and she starts cryin'!" Ranma stomped. "Girls never fight fair!"

            "Hey! I'm not as bad as her!" both girls cried, pointing at each other. 

            "No, you're worse," he mumbled under his breath. 

            "What was that!?" Akane reared up. 

            "I said, 'Duck!'" he pointed behind her. 

            "Huh? Yaaaah!" Akane looked around then jumped over Ranma to escape the mallet Kodachi was about to pound through her skull.

A quick assessment by the three teens established that the damage to the clinic, from Fa Shen's attack, was cosmetic, aside from the blown florescent tubes. In a matter of minutes, the lighting was restored to normal from spares Dr. Tofu stored in a closet. Hopping down from the ladder, after replacing the last florescent, Ranma-chan decided the distraction had been too brief. Ukyo and Shampoo met her with anxious, pleading looks. They had finished cleaning the walls and counters and sweeping the floor. Once she put the ladder away, she could not delay the conversation they had demanded any longer. With a sigh, she folded the ladder and carried it back to the closet. Stopping by the doctor's side, Ranma told him she would be outside for a few minutes. He offered to speak to the girls in her place but she shook her head. 

            "That's okay, Doc, I really owe them some kind of explanation."

            "Well, that's very honorable, Ranma-chan, but do you really know what you want to say to them?" he asked.

            "No, but I still have to listen to them and try to explain things. They're my friends and I owe them that much," Ranma-chan rubbed her head, looking down in consternation. "I also wanna know what Ranma said to them."

            "Alright then. If you need me, just shout," he smiled.

            "I'll probably be doin' that anyway," she grinned and led the two girls out of the clinic. When they stepped outside, she looked up at the moon and took a deep breath. She searched her mind for a way to start, but got caught up in the immensity of how much had changed in the past three days. Shampoo and Ukyo tried to wait for her to begin, but they sensed she could not. They both drew a steadying breath and Shampoo stepped forward.

            "Is true? Ranma think is girl now?" she opened, with a pained expression. Ranma-chan sighed and nodded, shifting to meet her eyes. 

            "A girl who wants to be Ranko?" Ukyo choked out.

            Ranma-chan paused, tensing. Ranma had apparently spelled things out better than she expected. "If that was an option," she began hesitantly, "then, yeah. I mean, bein' a girl and wantin' to be myself sorta means bein' Ranko. Not that I can. I just couldn't let go of everything at once."

            "No can be Ranko, same as no can be Ranma?" Shampoo tried.

            "Somethin' like that," Ranma-chan admitted. "I know you don't understand me actin' like a girl, but the thing is, I'm not acting. I'm not much of a girl, so maybe that's puttin' it the wrong way. It's more, I understand now." She turned her body so she was facing both of them. "This is my body. MY body. In this form I am female, and that's… normal. Kinda confusing, but I'm comfortable with this. It's real, and I've accepted it." She spread one hand flat over her abdomen, and looked down. "The feelings I have are real. I can't ignore them or pretend they don't have anything to do with me anymore. That's what I realized when I stopped being Ranma. Bein' a guy… I am used to that, but this is something I am still figuring out. I thought I had to, because the only identity left for me is Fa Shen. I thought, if I just get used to this, I can survive becoming her. I can survive." Taking a deep breath and turning away to stare at the moon again, she hugged herself, "Then she just kicks me out of my own body, and I don't know anything anymore."

            "But the fact is, you are a girl?" a male voice intruded.

            The three girls turned around to see Mousse standing at the clinic gate, his glasses down over his eyes, his gaze locked on Ranma-chan. He had been standing there in shocked silence since the three emerged from the clinic. With Cologne and Shampoo both out, it had been necessary to close the Cat Café, and he proceeded to the clinic in search of Cologne. Not one of them had taken note of him. He had heard the entire exchange and one thought had risen to take command of his mind. The bit about Fa Shen tickled something in the back of his brain, but he dismissed it to focus on her main assertion. Was Ranma now a girl? When Ranma-chan offered a confused frown and nodded in confirmation, he suddenly grinned in malicious glee. "So then. By declaring yourself a girl in truth, and forsaking all claim to the identity of Ranma Saotome, the Kiss of Marriage is dissolved and no longer negates the Kiss of Death!" he pointed at Ranma-chan dramatically. 

            "Stupid Mousse! Great-grandmother warn you not interfere! Why you start trouble!?" Shampoo narrowed a killing look on Mousse, her body trembling with sudden rage. 

            "I am not here to start trouble, my sweet Shampoo," he sighed dramatically, before hardening his gaze again. "I am here to see that it ends! Your honor demands her death! That she has toyed with your heart and messed with your mind for almost a year, changes nothing. If anything, it is more imperative she die so that your honor may be restored!"

            "Kiss of Marriage not is dissolved. Is also still man, still Ranma inside, and even Kiss of Death no mean can kill innocent. Even if Council say Shampoo must marry all male Ranma, Shampoo no can kill cursed Ranma or all female Ranma without kill husband!" Shampoo frothed, wishing Mousse had not overheard Ranma-chan's confession. Wishing he could listen to and see reason, but knowing he was as blind to the truth as he was to everything else.

            "Mousse! Now is not the time for stupid games!" Ukyo stepped in, verbally and literally, shielding Ranma-chan's body with hers. Her spatula was in her hands, ready to deflect his hidden weapons. "There's a lot more going on here, and things are going to go back to normal as soon as they are sorted out!"

            "This is tribal business, Ukyo. Stand aside or you will get hurt," Mousse promised her, shifting into a more aggressive pose. Focusing on Shampoo again, he droned on, "You know as well as I that if the one who administers the Kiss of Death fails in her mission due to any manipulation on the part of her foe—if she is seduced by her enemy—she may be considered lost or even to have joined the enemy. She may only be redeemed if another amazon, male or female, fulfills her mission and takes responsibility for redeeming her!"

            Shampoo gasped and choked on her disbelief. 

            "Rather than permit you to be shamed so, I remind you that this one," he pointed at Ranma-chan, "can die without any harm befalling her twins! Because of the mirror, she will die in time, but such a death will not avenge your honor! So, the choice is yours, Shampoo! Finish what you started, or I will, and you will become mine to redeem!"

            Ranma-chan blanched as a presence gushed up within her, thoughts and images spilling forth to reveal in detail the nature of Mousse's threat to Shampoo. "Shampoo would be your slave if you did that!" she gasped painfully, fighting the spirit of Fa Shen within her. 

            "How Airen know that!?" Shampoo demanded in a tiny voice.

            "Ran-chan? You look… ill," Ukyo glanced over her shoulder in alarm. 

            "She's trying to take over," Ranma-chan hissed through clenched teeth. Her eyes were wide and unseeing as she focused her will inward to battle for control, her limbs twitching as another struggled to command them. 

            "Aiyaa! Mousse, you stop now! Very bad you provoke girl!" Shampoo paled and turned all her attention to Ranma-chan, taking her into her arms and lowering the shaking girl to the paving stones. "Ukyo, go bring Great-grandmother at once! Ranma! You stay awake!" she leaned in to meet the red-haired girl's eyes, slapping her face to keep her attention. 

            "I can't leave you here with Mousse!" Ukyo cried, stepping forward to better shield the other two. She took a deep breath and shouted, "Cologne! Tofu!!!"

            "What the hell? What's going on here!?" Mousse scowled, beginning to advance on the trio. "For the last time, Shampoo! I beg you to finish it, or get out of my way!"

            Cologne and Dr. Tofu rushed out in response to Ukyo's alarming cry.

            "Mousse! You idiotic boy! What have you done!?" Cologne glared. 

            "He's trying to make Shampoo kill Ran-chan!" Ukyo declared. 

            "It would seem our master of hidden weapons had decided to play lawyer," Cologne snarled, guessing at the loopholes the boy was trying to exploit against Ranma-chan and Shampoo. "Very clever, Mousse. Very stupid as well. I had your word you would not interfere with or exploit Ranma's weakness to further your pursuit of Shampoo!"

            Mousse straightened in outrage, "Yes, you did. And I obeyed. I will not exploit RANMA's weakness. But I have it from the GIRL'S own mouth that she is not Ranma Saotome any more." Even as he shielded himself in that argument and indignation, he stared down at the girl he intended to see die, and wondered why she had suddenly collapsed in a fit. She would be ridiculously easy to kill in this condition, and yet still Shampoo refused to do the lawful thing. 

            "I expected you to understand my prohibition applied regardless of assumed identity, when it was obvious that the original Ranma faced the loss of that identity," Cologne glared. 

            Dr. Tofu stepped forward, taking a guard position next to Ukyo. "Mousse, while I empathize with the difficulties you have faced in your rivalry with Ranma, she is my patient and I cannot allow you to bring her further harm. Moreover, if you push this, you will ultimately lose the very thing you are fighting for," he warned in a calm, collected voice. That made everyone pause. Everyone here knew Tofu was a skilled martial artist, but no one, simply NO ONE had ever seen him rise to a fight. 

            Mousse sagged a little. He had the laws of his people on his side, but Cologne and Shampoo were not backing down. Even if they did bow to his logic, Tofu and Ukyo would not just step aside. Ukyo was a manageable threat, but the doctor was an unknown. There was a good chance Mousse could not defeat him in a preliminary engagement. But would Ranma-chan ever be this vulnerable again? Steeling himself, he tried one more time, "Do the laws of our people mean so little today? I truly do not wish to kill this person, since there is no grounds for rivalry between us now," except for the fact that he knew Shampoo still considered the cursed teen her "Airen". "But the fact remains that she is legally condemned and my beloved Shampoo cannot return home as long as she lives."

            "Even the most rigid laws must bend in extraordinary circumstances, and interpreting them to suit selfish, individual desires is an offense to the spirit of those laws, Mousse," Cologne stated carefully. She knelt beside Ranma-chan's twitching form and studied her tortured features. She gently smoothed the girl's face with a tender hand and continued, "When, in one person we find a man, and a woman, both outsiders, as well as an amazon, there can be no easy, quick solutions."

            "A- an A-amazon!?" Mousse stammered in confusion. 

            There was a general pause.

            "I suppose I should have explained things to you in greater detail. Unfortunately, until this evening, that last fact was still in question," Cologne sighed tiredly, rising to her feet from where she had checked on Ranma-chan's condition quickly. "This girl carries the spirit of Fa Shen, and because of your intrusion, she is fighting it to keep control of her body. You should be glad that you were stopped before Fa Shen could emerge. If you happened to defeat her before she oriented herself, things would have become a great deal more complicated." 

            "You can't be serious," Mousse frowned. 

            "Great-grandmother deadly serious!" Shampoo looked up with a tear stained face. "If you cause Fa Shen take over Ranma forever, Shampoo make Mousse wish never born!"

            "Is that possible," Ukyo demanded of Cologne in sudden fear. 

            "There is a struggle going on inside her right now. It may have started as an attempt by Ranma-chan to hold onto consciousness, but now that she has slipped into a trance, this might become a battle for permanent dominance," Cologne diagnosed in a resigned tone. "There is little we can do to help, I am afraid. Any direct interference could tip the balance catastrophically."

            "There is one thing," Tofu proposed. "If we move Ranma-chan to an environment more familiar to her, it could help her regain dominance. If you girls will keep an eye on Mousse, and see that he behaves, I can carry her to the Tendo dojo."

            "An excellent suggestion," Cologne stepped back to allow the doctor near Ranma-chan. She turned to Mousse. "I am tempted to send you packing, child, but if you can listen and heed instruction, I will allow you to come along. Perhaps you will get to meet the illustrious Fa Shen and change your mind about trying to kill her. If not, and if you still believe you have cause for action against her, you can discuss terms with Ranma-chan. She might appreciate the chance to put you in your place."

            "It is for Shampoo to decide. If she fails to see what she must do, then for her sake I will continue to pursue this," Mousse scowled. 

            "Well, that's rather complicated by the fact that I have restrained Shampoo from pursuing the Kiss of Death until such time as it can be established precisely who and what the original Ranma has become."

            "What!? Why was I not informed of this!?"

            "Simple. You did not ask."


	24. Confronting the Girl

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Twenty-Four: Confronting the Girl

Emerging from the crowds pouring in and out of the train station, Ranko found herself in the canyons of downtown Tokyo and slowly craned her neck to look upward. Being raised by Genma left her something of a naïf when it came to big cities. The tall towers, the crush of vehicles and pedestrians, the garish illumination, all conspired to make her a bit dizzy. With her height, even enhanced by heels, she was dependant on watching her mother's back as she led them through the crowd to their destination. A quick glance at Ryouga confirmed that he took the hustle and bustle in stride. He probably wandered through metropolitan areas every other time he turned a corner. She reminded herself that this was hardly her first visit to Tokyo. The problem, really, was that this was her first trip in a dress, and she was extremely conscious of the impact her appearance had on every staring set of male eyes. Even Ranma-chan, who was way ahead of her in the whole being a girl thing, would have been uncomfortable dressed as Ranko was in public. 

            This self-consciousness was the part of the curse she had hated the most when she was Ranma. Fortunately, "he" had almost no clue what lay behind the interest men showed in his cursed form. She did not have the same shield of oblivion. Thus, while she had accepted the notion that she was a girl, and her appearance was perfectly normal, she was still painfully nervous about the attention. 

            Apparently, so was Ryouga. They had pushed their way through the crowd only a block or so before he put his arm around her waist and carefully steered her out of the path of an approaching Salaryman. Ranko automatically stiffened and glared, turning to yell at Ryouga for grabbing her like that, when she realized the man he had just helped her avoid had his hands positioned to intercept more sensitive portions of her anatomy when they would have "collided". He had frozen in that position because Ryouga had caught his eye with an icy stare promising an agonizing death. The man gulped and backed away to be swallowed by the passing crowd. 

            "Sorry, Ranko," Ryouga relaxed his grip. "Guys like that infuriate me!"

            Nodoka continued on, unaware of the little scene behind her. Ranko and Ryouga picked up their pace so they would not lose sight of her. Though he had relaxed, Ryouga's hand still rested on her hip, the muscled arm brushing her back. It felt strangely protective and threatening at the same time. "I would have noticed him before he got close enough," she reprimanded gently, no longer sure she wanted to yell at him for interfering.

            "Don't be a jerk, Ranma!" he scowled under his breath, withdrawing. He was not about to apologize for acting like a gentleman. "If you're gonna look and act that much like a girl, don't expect me not to treat you like one!" Once more doubt flashed in his eyes. Just looking at her, the way she appeared from the start of their date, it had been very easy to forget who she had been and pretend she was Copy-chan. How could one remark undo that illusion?

            Ranko stiffened and looked away. "Turning into a girl doesn't mean I can't take care of myself, Ryouga," she muttered, sounding a little hurt. Strangely, being addressed as Ranma was what actually hurt. She tried to make sense of that. Was it the obvious? That, coming from Ryouga, the use of her original name was the highest expression of contempt he could offer?

            "If he had been trying to kill you, I wouldn't question that," he answered without looking at her. He suddenly regretted snapping at her, how he had addressed her. Even before he invoked it, the apparition of Ranma had been hanging over their heads, along with all the bad blood that went with it. The sheer number of times Ranma had deceived him in female form showed how easy it was for Ryouga to see just the girl, and his automatic move to protect her proved it. Of course, he was also in the habit of losing his temper when he pierced the illusion and realized it was Ranma. He was kicking himself now for being stupid enough to have forgotten she was Ranma in the first place. Choking down his temper in furious embarrassment, he could not deny that she had not deceived him as much as he was deceiving himself. He did have a genuine concern, however, and he tried to express that while backing down from the implied insult she protested. "I know you would have wiped the floor with him, after he molested you."

            "After," she picked up on the condition of his statement. "You think I would have let him touch me like that!?" 

            "Tell me it would occur to you that a stranger would try to do that, that you could have prevented it," he demanded. 

            Ranko frowned, about to assert that she would have, but suddenly swallowed. Her initial complaint had been a thoughtless reflex. She knew she should have been able to block or avoid an ambush, but pushed for an honest answer her conscience kicked in. With all the people, and her distraction, she had felt no sense of physical danger. She had not even realized what the man was up to until Ryouga stood him off. "Well, no. I suppose I didn't expect that. 'S not like I was in any danger, Ryouga. I still could have clobbered him."

            "That's not the point. He would have already copped a feel," Ryouga raised a tightening fist, as his anger found a genuine focus. He suddenly saw the inherent charm of Ranma as a girl. She was so defenseless. It was as if she had no clue what men would want to get their hands on her for. Kind of ironic, when she had been one herself. In a wry tone, he spelled it out so there would be no more misunderstandings on this point. "Perverts like that expect to get pounded, but if they get their rocks off, it's worth it to them. Haven't you learned anything from Happosai!?" he asked, incredulous. 

            Ranko stopped to study him. Thanks to Copy-chan, she was no longer as innocent as she had once been. For Ranma, previously, defending a girl's honor had been sort of an abstract notion. It figured she would not get the point until she was a girl, and it was her honor in question. It suddenly became clear that being taken advantage of was not merely losing the upper hand in combat. It sent a cold chill down her spine to grasp the reality of the threat she had missed. A flash of anger, swallowed by intense retroactive embarrassment followed as she considered the question. "If anything, Happosai got me to ignore that kind of thing," she admitted a bit sheepishly. 

            It stabbed him suddenly, all the things Happosai had done to his rival that the "girl" had "taken like a man" and which he had privately mocked Ranma over. How often had he warmed himself at night by recounting the suffering and abuse heaped on his rival and gloating? He had catalogued the wounds and humiliations suffered by Ranma with glee, seeing it as karmic payback for the insults Ryouga had suffered because of him. Had he ever tried to compare their lives? Looking at Ranko, and suddenly seeing a girl who had been conditioned to welcome abuse, he found he did not much like himself. Ryouga sighed in frustration. "You really don't have a clue about being a girl, do you?" he winced in sympathy.

            She glanced down at herself. "Ranma-chan said there was more to being a girl than just putting on a dress," she mused aloud, as Ryouga's argument began to sink in. Dressing up, and her mother's fussing, had caused her perspective to shift. It had brought out a feeling of being a girl, of just being feminine, and it served as a constant reminder to mind her speech and manners. It did not impart any special wisdom, however. 

            "We better keep moving, your mom's getting way ahead of us," Ryouga offered his arm in truce. Ranko slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow and they resumed walking. They progressed several more blocks in silence. After careful consideration, he tried to return to the topic, "I can think of you as a girl, or I can think of you as Ranma, but I don't know how to do both at the same time. I don't mean to insult you, but I have feelings for you that drive me insane if you think of you as him. I get the idea that being Ranko is like being Ranma to you, that you see yourself as the same person, but there's just no way I can treat you like a guy if that's what you're expecting. If that's what you want, we should end this date right here." 

            Ranko's head whipped around to stare at him in shock. She swallowed and looked down. Her own reaction startled her. For all Copy-chan was a small part of her memory, her feelings had been powerful and unrestrained. Emotionally, she had been too naked to do anything but give herself completely to her passions. There had been no time to build a relationship, but the girl had genuinely loved Ryouga. For all the complications Ranko faced, the idea of losing Ryouga so suddenly was too painful to contemplate. The emotion was as real and powerful as that caused by the koi rod, except that it was genuine. It would not magically evaporate. It could only end with a broken heart. That was why she had tried to distance herself from it at once. Her hand tightened on his arm, but her throat clenched up too. 

            "What?" he looked down at her. 

            "J-just… treat me like a person, Ryouga," she stammered and swallowed. "I know I'm an idiot about being a girl, and maybe I'm just an idiot to begin with, but… don't be… don't… I need to do this if I am going to figure out what to do with my life," she forced herself to meet his eyes. 

            "I… Alright. This is confusing for both of us, but," he took a deep breath and sighed. "I would like to see if this can work." For a moment his eyes glazed over as he imagined the girl beside him straddling his hips and saying shocking, provocative things to him, the sun shining through her scarlet mane, the scent of lawns and forests on the air, the tickle of her lips nibbling on his neck. Unconsciously he slipped his arms around Ranko and crushed her to his chest possessively. 

            Ranko squeaked and began gasping for enough air to shout for freedom.

            Nodoka, having noticed the couple were not following, had doubled back in time to see the passionate embrace. Her eyes lit up with fond delight and she clasped her hands in the air in front of her, "Oh! How darling!" 

            Ryouga stiffened in shock at the interruption and Ranko nearly fainted from the increased pressure. Nodoka looked on for a few more seconds, savoring the blossoming romance she perceived, then cleared her throat. "I hate to interrupt you two love birds, but the restaurant is just around the corner, and we have strict reservations. If we delay any longer, you will lose your table," she began to shoo them into motion. Ryouga was quick to release Ranko, then catch her when she swooned from the return of oxygen to her brain. 

            "Are you okay?" he asked in instant concern.

            "Sure. Fine," she grabbed him by the collar, "Ryouga, if you dump me and go back to Akari, you better give her a few years of martial arts lessons before you date her. Otherwise, you'll break her in two!"

            "Wha-!" he stood there baffled. The notion of dumping Ranko was not pleasant, it sort of distracted him from the rest of her statement. "I'm not going to do that! You just asked…"

            "Strength, you idiot! You have more than your share!" she leaned in and squeezed his biceps. "I'm a girl, all soft and delicate, remember!"

            Ryouga blushed and stammered as she led him after Nodoka. That was the first time in Ryouga's memory that someone had called him an idiot and he did not instantly begin raging. He had been too distracted by the feel of her hands straining to dent his muscles. Then he noticed the way she was moving, as if her ribs were bruised. He swallowed a sudden, panicked urge to snatch her up and apologize. How could he have hurt her so thoughtlessly!?

            "Ranko," he jogged a step to walk beside her.

            She looked over at him, and saw the chagrin on his face. She laughed before she could stop herself, "Hey, don't worry. I am pretty tough. Just… be careful next time, okay?"

            Ryouga felt his heart pound heavily as she gave him a brilliant smile. 

While Ranko and Ryouga were following Nodoka into a five star restaurant in downtown Tokyo, Ranma was fretting on the sidelines of the fight between Akane and Kodachi. The park, which had seen more than its share of conflict in recent days and weeks, offered Kodachi an advantage with her aerial fighting style and reliance on weapons and treachery. As she had proven in their fight against the Yamatano Orochi, Akane could enter aerial combat, but she generally neglected or only unconsciously used her ki to enhance her leaps. Ranma had surreptitiously guarded Akane's back, flinging small rocks to intercept any weapons Kodachi launched that Akane failed to block or dodge. He hoped she did not notice, since it only took a moment's distraction for her innate clumsiness to trip her up. He winced at the flaws in her form and her over reliance on strength and power, but had to admit it forced Kodachi to keep her distance. The one time Akane had gotten a hold of her, Akane had whipped Kodachi around like a rag doll, pounding her into the ground and off of trees and boulders. 

            On the bright side, the training she had once undergone to face Kodachi in Rhythmic Gymnastic Martial Arts had not entirely left her. Within moments, Akane had been arming herself with the weapons Kodachi littered the battle field with, throwing them back into the fray against the gymnast. Akane would probably have done better over all if Kodachi had brought her entire team with her, since Akane was still better adapted to fighting crowds willing to converge on her. It was obvious, from her increasing temper, that she realized she had to take the fight to Kodachi, somehow, or her opponent would eventually wear her down with her strafing attacks. 

            "It's a shame she can't harness all the chi she's giving off!" Ranma sighed, skirting the edge of the combat so he remained able to intercept Kodachi if push came to shove. Akane was lighting the clearing they fought in, standing in a pillar of spectral flames. 

            Kodachi suddenly darted forward, behind a hail of gymnastic clubs, her ribbon snapping out in their wake. Akane took the clubs on her forearm, then snagged the ribbon with her other hand, in a broad, sweeping motion. The ribbon wrapped around her wrist, and, while Kodachi was in mid leap, she jerked her hand back, dragging the startled girl through the air. Kodachi twisted to avoid the fist Akane prepared to meet her, but at the last second, Akane whirled and sank a powerful round-house kick to her midsection. Kodachi huffed explosively, as the air was driven out of her lungs. 

            "Hyaaaaaaaa!" Akane screamed, whipping her upper body back around to deliver a staggering back hand punch to Kodachi's jaw. Kodachi's head snapped left and back, her body arching limply as it followed the momentum imparted by the blow. The handle of her ribbon fell from her numb hands, and as Akane lunged forward to deliver more punishment, her legs became entangled in the long strip of cloth. "Waaaaah!" Akane crossed her arms over her face, as she whipped chin first into the sod. 

            "Oh man!" Ranma began to rush forward. 

            Kodachi flipped over and halted her flight by landing delicately on her feet. Wiping her chin, her hand came away stained by the blood dribbling from the corner of her mouth. "Well," she uttered haughtily, "it seems your reputation for brutality is well deserved, Akane Tendo."

            Akane fumed, struggling to disentangle herself, "Shut up!"

            "Perhaps it is even true, then, that you abuse my dear Ranma-Sama at every opportunity!" Kodachi sneered. "Truly, I must teach you a lesson!"

            Akane flinched and scowled. "If any one's going to be taught a lesson here, it's you, Kodachi!" she promised, hurrying to her feet. She could sense Ranma rushing to her side, but after her rival's accusation, she could not turn to look at him. 

            "And what do you presume to teach me, peasant?"

            "For one thing, you aren't wanted here. Ranma doesn't want you! He doesn't care for you, he doesn't even like you!" she snarled. "The sooner you realize that and go back to your psychotic little dream world, the better!"

            Ranma groaned. Now Kodachi would be even worse!

            "Akane!"

            "You stay out of this, Ranma! I am sick of her butting in and thinking she can do whatever she wants," Akane almost looked over, but forced herself to keep her eyes on Kodachi. 

            Kodachi laughed mockingly, "Oh, like your pathetic little lies mean anything to one such as I! I can see quite clearly that you don't speak for Ranma-Sama. Does she?"

            "I…" Ranma wanted to confirm Akane's assertion, but he was cut off.

            "Don't answer that, Ranma! She's just dragging you back into the middle of this," Akane did turn this time, sparing a heartbeat to meet his eyes. Returning her glare to the gymnast she raised her guard, "Ranma's made himself perfectly clear many times, Kodachi! You just refuse to hear it! You're as bad as your brother and I am not putting up with it any more!"

            "I have certainly had enough of you, as well!" Kodachi snarled. Producing another ribbon, she twirled it idly and gave an evil smile, "I seem to recall that you and I had a bet at one point, but you faked an injury to get out of it. Perhaps it is time we corrected that, and determined, once and for all, who shall give up their claim to dear Ranma-Sama!"

            "I'd be happy to fight you, and wipe that arrogant smirk off your face, any day, but I'd be an idiot to believe you would ever honor your word in such an agreement," Akane stepped boldly between her rival and Ranma. "Any excuse to put you in your place is good enough for me!" 

            "You would be an idiot under any circumstances, and you'll never stop me from claiming my rightful place at his side!" Kodachi bounded over Akane's head and made a grab for Ranma. 

            Seeing her headed right at him, Ranma darted out of the way. Akane pivoted as Kodachi flipped over her and was ready when the girl touched down where Ranma had been standing beside her. A few seconds of close combat was all she really needed, and she grinned fiercely in delight that Kodachi had given her the opportunity. In an explosion of movement, she lashed out in a series of violent moves to disarm the gymnast. As fast as Kodachi produced ribbons, clubs and razor hoops, Akane's feet and fists snapped out to shatter them or knock them right out of Kodachi's hands. For once, her manic, headlong charge succeeded in allowing her to run her opponent down in a dazzling series of strikes, and when all of Kodachi's weapons had been exhausted, Akane was ready with her trusty mallet.

            Kodachi had pulled everything out of her sleeves, so to speak, trying to find something tough enough to meet or deflect Akane's blows. It was like trying to ward off a wood chipper, except that if she tried to gather herself to leap clear, a leg would sweep out in perfect timing to catch her on the ankle and force her to maneuver on the ground to keep her balance. Akane was more than fast enough to stay right on top of Kodachi through flips, cartwheels, handsprings and rolls. All of that sustained momentum was transferred to her mallet, streaking in a low arc over the grass and up under Kodachi's jaw in a move perfected on Ranma over the past ten months.

            It was all Kodachi could do to prepare herself for the impact that launched her bodily over the horizon. Her cry of despair and dismay echoed for a full minute after her departure, which Akane spent panting for air and grinning in victory. Ranma stood there, a cold sweat chilling his entire body. He was quite familiar with what she could accomplish with a perfect opening, but it was kind of startling to see her batter a serious opponent to the point where such an opening had presented itself. It was almost as though Akane had realized the weakness of Kodachi's style, reliance on weapons of course, and created an effective strategy to exploit it. 

            "I have been waiting a long time to do that!" Akane finally crowed. 

            "Didn't you beat her up the other day?" Ranma stuffed his hands into his pockets and sauntered over to her, with a mask of bored curiosity covering his disbelief and nervousness. 

            "Ukyo was helping. It's not the same thing," Akane dusted her hands off and took a moment to examine her dress. Ranma frowned and quickly patted and pulled the outfit into an astonishing semblance of order. What Akane had thought were tears and stains seemed to vanish as he passed his hands over them. However, in the process those same hands were in close contact with her body. She had caught the offending paws in her hands and twisted them painfully out of joint before she even realized what she was doing.

            "Gyaaaaah! Watch it, you violent ox!" Ranma cried, trying to slip free of her grip while his arms remained attached to his body. 

            "What did you call me!?" A firestorm erupted in her eyes. 

            "What did you do that for!?"

            "Maybe you'll learn to keep your perverted hands to yourself!"

            "Yeah, well if you didn't enjoy it so much maybe you wouldn't have to act so insulted over the slightest contact!"

            Akane gasped and could not get her flapping mouth to produce a word.

            "Uh oh."

            "You arrogant, egotistical, perverted, insensitive, JERK!"

            Certain noises can convey in an almost tangible way, the detailed composition of flesh and bone and wood. They are almost as painful to hear as to produce, or, after much exposure, Ranma had realized being malletted was only half as painful as it sounded. On the positive side, Ranma thought in transit, at least Akane had bashed him over the opposite horizon from Kodachi.

The arrival of Dr. Tofu, carrying an unconscious Ranma and trailed by Cologne, Shampoo, Ukyo and Mousse, caused an upset at the Tendo Dojo. Ranma was just fortunate that Cologne had been standing behind the doctor when Kasumi greeted them at the door. She had seen the doctor's glasses fog up, and his body stiffen, and casually tapped a few pressure points. Tofu had jerked once, shifted the girl in his arms, cleared his throat and began explaining the situation to Kasumi, who led them all upstairs to Ranma's room. Once Ranma-chan was laid out on a futon and in familiar surroundings, Dr. Tofu went downstairs to speak to Soun and Genma, while Kasumi remained upstairs with Ranma-chan and the three teens. Cologne hesitated at the door, trying to decide whether to go downstairs and help keep the father's from storming up to meddle with Ranma-chan, or to remain to attend her, and keep an eye on Mousse. 

            She glanced at Shampoo and Ukyo, wondering if they were enough to keep the boy in line, but as her gaze traveled to Kasumi, she realized there was no need for concern. Mousse did not have what it took to defy Kasumi. One look of disapproval from the mild mannered girl would tie the boy up in knots. 

            "I will return to check on Ranma-chan as soon as I have calmed Soun and Genma. The last thing we need is the two of them trying to rouse her out of this trance," she informed the group before exiting. 

            "Oh dear," Kasumi clucked, laying a warm, folded, hand towel over Ranma-chan's forehead and adjusting the blanket tucked up to her chin. Dr. Tofu's explanation had been a quick sketch of the immediate facts, but in this case the straight facts beggared understanding. She looked at the two girls and frowned in lingering confusion, "She's like this because she's fighting with the spirit of the girl she used to be? I am sure that must be quite unusual. How did this happen?"

            Both girls turned to glare at Mousse. Ukyo turned back first to explain, "I didn't really believe the rumor about Fa Shen, or at least that there was any way Ran-chan could become her, until she popped out and took control of Ran-chan earlier tonight. It doesn't make any sense to me, unless being around other Amazons acting aggressively somehow triggers the awakening of this past incarnation. I am guessing Ran-chan tried fighting it off, like he sometimes resists going cat around other cats," Ukyo looked down in concern and slipped a hand under the blanket to grasp one of Ranma-chan's. She met Kasumi's eye in faint alarm. "She's still cold!"

            "That means she's probably in shock," Kasumi frowned. "Did Cologne say if there was anything we could do to help her in this condition?"

            "Great-grandmother say, we no can do anything without upset Ranma, maybe make permanent sleep of death we no be very careful," Shampoo sobbed. She also reached for one of Ranma-chan's hands.

            "Did she say Ranma-chan could fall into a coma?" Kasumi paled. 

            "Is word Great-grandmother use, Shampoo sorry, no remember right. All we can do is keep Ranma safe in family place, make more at home for rightful spirit want to come back," she clarified, or at least tried. "Is all stupid Mousse fault!" she turned to glare at her unwanted paramour. "What you thinking, try force Shampoo kill Ranma!? Try threaten kill Ranma like that!?" 

            Mousse gritted his teeth and tried to keep the anger and shame from boiling out. "At least I was thinking! Don't you remember that the reflections could kill Ranma? He… she could just evaporate and then everything that was on her head falls upon the reflections. If the legends are true, and I've been sneaking in and reading the old mummy's books to check them, there won't be a body, so you could never prove she died and claim you fulfilled the kiss!"

            "Just what are you getting at, Mousse?" Ukyo turned furious eyes on him. "How dare you presume Ranma won't beat this! Ranma never loses, and I'll bet you everything I own that Ranma would find some way to beat the mirror's curse if you haven't already ruined his chances!"

            "You mean, the same way Ranma beat the Jusenkyo curse and never gave in to it?" Mousse challenged, knowing they could not counter that argument after Ranma-chan admitted to becoming a girl at heart.

            "It wasn't the curse that caused Ran-chan to become a girl in his mind," Ukyo retorted hotly. "It was the other Ranma, and his stupid father pushing him to treat this mistake as a cure! He told me himself, it would be suicide to try to fight with his copy over who got to be Ranma. Ran-chan does what it takes to win, and in this case the only way to win was to not fight! Don't you have any respect for that!?"

            Both Amazons stared at her in surprise. 

            "Shampoo thought you try force Ranma be man for you," the purple-haired girl accused, a taint of bitter shame in her voice for undercutting Ukyo's argument. 

            "Yeah, well, that was pretty selfish of me," Ukyo lowered her head. "I was too busy worrying about my own problems to listen to Ran-chan about his. But I do care about Ran-chan, and now that I've thought about it, what he and his copy said makes sense. As much as I want Ran-chan to be a man again, I know why he's not one right now. Until he can be, I'll damn well be her friend and I am not going to listen to any crap about killing her 'cuz you all think she's going to die anyway!"

            "Shampoo not think that! Never think that!" she cried in defiance.

            "Even if it means you forfeit your cure for allowing the girl you promised to kill to survive?" Mousse challenged softly.

            "You no can speak of that, Mousse! Is forbidden!"

            "So is neglecting or ignoring the kiss of death. If you don't even try to fulfill it, you defy the laws of the tribe. You know that a nyanniichaun curse does not void that law, and only the kiss of marriage given to the man behind the curse gives you a loophole out of it. Only if he resists the curse. If he gives up his manhood, he loses that protection and you are required to act upon the first kiss as soon as you discover the fact!" Mousse was once more openly enraged.

            "Is true," Shampoo admitted, "But, spirit of amazon womans in Ranma mean Shampoo no allowed to claim kiss of death!"

            "And what about the other one? Are they both going to become Fa Shen? Don't you realize that you have to kill the one who does not!?"

            There was a moment of silence as the three girls stared at Mousse in shock. "What the hell are you talking about, Mousse?" Ukyo gasped. 

            "I'm talking about what Cologne never mentioned!" he raged. He jumped to his feet and began to pace around the guest bedroom. "The laws of our tribe are written in such a way that they cannot be eluded by magic. In fact, the harsh ones are designed specifically to protect the tribe from enemies who use magic to threaten or manipulate us. Because of where they come from, Ranma and Ranko are technically the same person as this Ranma. Because they are split into different sexes, the kiss of death follows Ranko, and the kiss of marriage follows Ranma, if this Ranma ceases to exist before they are fulfilled. If Shampoo consummated her marriage with this Ranma, she would remain married to the other one if the original died. If Shampoo kills this Ranma, the kiss of death is fulfilled and Ranko is considered to be dead by the tribe."

            Ukyo paused, studying the two amazons. Frowning, she asked, "Does that mean, if Ran-chan asserted his manhood and married Shampoo, the kiss of death would be dissolved, or would it still affect Ranko?"

            "Kiss of death is dissolved if kiss of marriage is fulfilled," Shampoo stated calmly. "Is why spatula-girl no can have Airen. Shampoo no want kill girl Ranma."

            "What happens if Ran-chan becomes Fa Shen?"

            "Fa Shen great amazon legend. Is immune to both kiss, so same as if Ranma die, both kiss go to copies. Shampoo forced to marry boy and kill girl."

            Ukyo and Kasumi turned to stare at Mousse. He was nodding sadly in agreement. Ukyo rehashed the confrontation outside the clinic and growled in sudden comprehension. "If she killed Ran-chan, you would still be blocked from marrying Shampoo by the male Ranma. I know you don't really care about Ranko, because that's just a name to you. What you were really after was that part about redeeming Shampoo! You expected her to refuse to do it, leaving it up to you. If you could claim you killed Ran-chan to redeem Shampoo from her failure to do it herself, you'd own her. Like Ran-chan blurted out, she'd be like your slave!" Ukyo accused.

            Mousse sagged as Shampoo glared at him with murder in her eyes. 

            "I would not have treated her like a slave," he mumbled. After that accusation, there was nothing he could say that would make them understand why he would take such a desperate path to bind Shampoo to him. "I would take her as a wife, and treat her with love and respect. The only difference would be that the marriage would be more similar to that of foreigners, where the woman defers to the man, and so would not be officially recognized by the tribe."

            "Mousse, I would never allow you to destroy Shampoo's honor that way," Cologne announced from the door, having returned in time to hear Ukyo's accusation and the boy's reply. "I would have her reclaim her honor in death before I permitted such a travesty." She hopped over and dropped off her staff to examine Ranma-chan. She remained pale and chill, but the tension had not returned to her face. The struggle was either too deep to touch her features, or it had evolved into a more cerebral conflict. Returning her gaze to Mousse, "I will admit, that, though desperate, your scheme was at least clever. Unfortunately, your ignorance of Son-In-Law's former incarnation betrayed you. You have fueled my great-granddaughter's contempt for you and gained nothing from it. I believe that is punishment enough for daring to circumvent my commands and question my authority."

            "Yes, Elder."

It was somehow appropriate that when Ranma-chan and Fa Shen broke from the initial contest of wills and sank into a trance, that they found themselves inside a memory of Jusenkyo. Rather than a specific memory of an event, the spring riddled, misty valley resolved like a dreamscape, a realm inhabited by the two of them alone. For Fa Shen, they had arrived just in the wake of her being told of her death and resurrection in the male incarnation of Ranma. Like Ranma-chan, she had simply blacked out. There was an eternal moment of falling, as hot water doused her body, soaking her clothes and hair, then the sensation of something combing though her memory, picking out various details of amazon law, and a growing awareness that some amazon male was challenging her to combat. That had shaken her awake. There was no way she was going to be forced into marriage with any man! She had not been prepared for the indomitable will that held her back, forcing her back into her cage of oblivion. Unable to rise up and take command of her body, she grappled with that will and began to pull it down with her. From her recent revelation, she assumed it was the mind of the boy she was supposed to have been reincarnated as. With a feral, psychic grin, she assumed she would quickly subdue him and reclaim her grossly interrupted life. 

            There was one problem, she realized as she saw her opponent resolving in the mists, where they entered the dreamscape locked in combat. The person in her grip was not male. She was Fa Shen's twin.

            "I'm not gonna let you steal my body!" the girl was shouting as thought translated into sound. Ranma-chan was so focused, she accepted the transition from mental to physical battle without even blinking. Something warned her that Fa Shen had the advantage simply for having succeeded in dragging her mind from the brink of reality into this mental construct. Or, as she understood it, the ghost's spiritual home turf.

            Fa Shen found herself heavily pressed to defend herself from a storm of close quarters attacks. She struggled under a constant rain of hard striking knees, elbows, and fists. Realizing that she did not have the skill to retaliate, and that her defenses would quickly crumble under the onslaught, she gasped for air and shouted, "Wait! Stop! What the hell-!? Aren't you… supposed… to be... a boy!?"

            Ranma-chan hammered in a few more hits, then catapulted herself backwards to gain room to respond to the shocked question, checking herself out with a quick glance. With surprise she sucked in air. Ranma had often had dreams where his cursed form manifested, but she sensed that her appearance here had more significance. "Heh. I really am a girl inside," she mused. 

            "Uh," Fa Shen kept her guard up, but relaxed gratefully and tried to regain her breath. "That sounds like there was some question," she noted, when she felt comfortable enough to speak. 

            "I knew it was possible, knew it was real, but I wasn't sure if I was just pretending after all," Ranma-chan replied carelessly, studying her hands. She looked up at the other girl and frowned. She recognized her form, of course. She was intimately familiar with every physical feature, but the style of her hair and clothing was unfamiliar, except in the general sense of amazon fashion. "You're Fa Shen?" she asked hesitantly, wondering if they were still fighting for control on some level, and if this was all some trick to bring her guard down. 

            "I am. I don't know who you are, though. I thought…" she hesitated. This was really weird. The other girl's comments had made little sense, though they added strength to her original suspicion. "Aren't you supposed to be a boy?" she asked again, looking a little uncomfortable and confused.

            "I'm… I was Ranma Saotome," she responded, bowing nervously. "Sorry about this." She looked down again at herself and then met the girl's eyes again. "I was a boy until a… yesterday, I suppose. I mean, I've been turnin' into a girl, because of the curse, for almost a year. I just never thought of myself as a girl until…" she cut herself off. "Look, this is a really bad time for me to be fighting for control of my body. Why are you trying to possess me?"

            Fa Shen stared at Ranma-chan in confusion. "What?"

            Ranma-chan sighed. "I don't remember anything that happened when you had my body. Did anyone explain to you what is going on?"

            "I met a bunch of strangers who told me a lot of things I am not sure I believe. Since I'm talking to you now, I guess a lot of it was true. I remember dying. I understand that created a new cursed spring, but I don't understand why you would look exactly like me if as much time has passed as Cologne claimed. The impression of the original usually fades over time and the effects become more general."

            "Cologne said something like that. She said it becomes more rare for the ghost of the spring to try to possess someone, which I guess makes them look like the original. Which is funny, 'cuz I'd probably look like this if I was born a girl anyway. If she had not shown us a picture of what you looked like in the past, I would not believe my curse was any different from Herb's," she confided, taking a few cautious steps closer. "Look, I don't know what's going on here, but if we're not still fighting, I've got a lot of questions, and I bet you do too," she proposed, crossing her arms. "How about a truce while we sort things out and figure out how to fix things and wake up. And quick. For all I know, you're killing me by trying to take control, since no one's there keeping my body from dissolving."

            "What!?" Fa Shen shrieked. She could not accept coming back from the dead just long enough to end up dying again!

            "I guess I'll go first then," Ranma chan led them to the edge of the valley, both to find a place to sit and to put some distance between them and the springs. Even in a dream, she did not want to be anywhere she could accidentally fall into one. Strangely, most of the springs seemed to disappear as they moved, until only one remained. Beyond it was the Tendo Dojo. At a second glance, Ranma-chan realized it was actually the koi-pond and skipped around it to take a seat on the patio outside the Tea Room. Fa Shen followed, taking in the change of scenery in confusion and curiosity. 

            The two sat down facing the pond. 

            Ranma-chan, comforted by the feeling of being on her home turf, quickly sketched out her life as Ranma, confirming the story Fa Shen had been told in the clinic and adding a few details. "About a week and a half ago, my Pops and I were returning from the mountains where we had been training. It was a dark and stormy night, and we decided to seek shelter when we came across this big mansion in the woods," she continued to tell about looking in the mirror, and what happened with Copy-chan, the second visit and the emergence of Copy-kun, the chaos of the next two days as Cologne revealed the true nature of the Mirror of Broken Souls and Genma replaced the cursed teen as his son. Fa Shen smirked as Ranma-chan explained her mental shift from male to female in the wake of losing her identity, and the danger of being absorbed into her reflections and ceasing to exist.

            "I knew that if I had some center to focus on, and if I could restore my ki boundaries, I could survive. Since my reflections are becoming Ranma and Ranko, and because we discovered that I was once you, I thought I would become you," she finally admitted. "I didn't think you'd roll me over and take my place though."

            Fa Shen looked a little ill. "You actually remember things that happened to me? You have some of my memories!?"

            "Yes. I thought I would eventually remember everything, and I would become you like Copy-chan and Copy-kun became Ranko and Ranma."

            "I suppose if it worked that way, you sort of would," she frowned. "Somehow that doesn't make me feel like I would actually wake up. I certainly don't remember anything about being you! If you want to know why I am fighting you, I guess it's because I don't want to die either. I didn't want to die in the first place! I think just remembering my life won't make me a part of you. I'll just be the one who gets sucked into oblivion!" she realized in sudden distress. She collapsed into worried fretting. 

            "Figures it would be something messed up like that," Ranma-chan scowled, feeling miserable. She turned inward trying to figure out how this mess had been created. After a moment, she had poured though all the things that had been discussed with Cologne and an idea hit her. "Oh, I see now."

            'What?" Fa Shen stared at her, coming out of her own reverie. 

            "When we were trying to figure out why my ki was bleeding and how to stop it, we discovered that the three of us have enough energy for two people circulating through us. Cologne thought it was strange that I would have that much power, even with developing my chi abilities as much as I have," Ranma-chan revealed. "I wondered where the power came from, but I didn't have much time to think about it then. But earlier, Cologne had said that a part of the soul of the original victim remains in the springs when they are created, along with the mind and spirit. The ghost of the spring." Fa Shen stared in confusion. "That's where the extra ki comes from," Ranma shrugged and referred back to what she had learned studying the ki flow of the trio. "I am the center, the heart of me and my reflections, and you are, well," Ranma-chan shrugged. "You are the ghost of Fa Shen. I mean, you are Fa Shen, but you're the center, the heart of that second pool of ki."

            Fa Shen thought about that and nodded slowly. "It is said that a person only taps a fraction of their total psyche in life. There was enough of my soul, probably a much greater part than what was captured by Jusenkyo's magic, to go on to have other incarnations. To become you. So, when you fell in the spring, you had all of me and all of you combined," she rephrased, working it out for herself. "I suppose, then, that if your body dies—dissolves, whatever—our ki would be divided between Ranma and Ranko. In a sense, we would become them, but… the process would shatter us. The threads of our consciousness would just unravel. Neither of us would really continue to exist, but all the parts of us would in them."

            "That's really depressing. Like dying and being reincarnated, but skipping that whole being born and growing up thing," Ranma-chan sighed. 

            "I don't want to die again, Ranma," Fa Shen confessed. "I don't want to kill you either, since you are me, in a way. Same soul and all. I don't understand how I can be two completely different people, but things of divine nature, even the human soul, always seem impossible for a mortal mind to understand. If this here is possible, if your reflections are possible, if there is a separate embodiment for every aspect of the soul, then we both have every right to survive. Can you think of anyway we can work together, and not fight over who gets to go on living and who has to die?"

            "I already made the promise to myself about Ranma and Ranko," Ranma-chan sighed, giving her a serious look. "We're one short in the way of bodies, or one up in bodies, since there's really only you and me when it comes to ki. I don't know. Since you're a ghost, you might be able to move from one of us to the others, sort of follow the flow of ki I guess. Maybe if I can do that too, we can each pick a reflection and let my original body evaporate." Ranma-chan shrugged. Fa Shen was not the only ghost she had ever dealt with, and of the various ghosts she had, one had actually been the astral form of a man who had not died yet. The concept of jumping out of her body and into another that belonged to her was not beyond her. She had no clue how to do it, but it was the only notion that implied some way to keep her consciousness intact. She knew there was some kind of psychic connection between her and the reflections. However, unless she could find some way to test and confirm the possibility, she was not about to let go of her current existence, her original body, with any haste. "Whatever it takes, I don't want anyone to have to die for a solution."

            "Alright," Fa Shen nodded. "I won't try to take over your body, and I'll try and help come up with a solution that we both can live with. I wish I could be aware of what is going on while you are in charge, so, I don't know, I hope we can work on that somehow too."

            "I should probably let Cologne know about this, and maybe she can help. I'll see if she has any ideas about letting you remain awake or something when I am in control, and," she shrugged. "Maybe for me too, since I am sure she will want you to take over so she can talk to you or work with you too. As weird as things have gotten now, the idea of sharing my body with someone else just isn't as spooky as it ought to be. Besides," she grinned, "I can't wait to see your reaction to the curse."

            Fa Shen swallowed in discomfort. "Ugh. You mean, turning into a boy!"

            "Oh yeah, I definitely don't wanna miss that!"


	25. The Art of Dating, Step One: Conversatio...

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Twenty-Five: The Art of Dating, Step One: Conversation

After watching Ranma's form dwindle over the horizon, Akane suffered a pang of guilt. She found herself painfully reminded of her actions when she gave the engagement to Nabiki; how she kept wasting her chances to make up with Ranma and let things return to normal. This situation was similar in that she desperately wanted reality to return to something she was familiar with. Worse, because in some ways it had, at least with Ranma setting off her temper and her cutting loose. She sensed that if the cursed Ranma had patted her down like that, she might have been able to restrain herself. Either because she had been acting like a girl for a day or so, or because she still had that air of vulnerability that had subdued Akane since the morning after she "slept" with Copy-kun. Even though she still had a hard time thinking of "new" Ranma as "the" Ranma, it seemed she had no trouble reacting to him that way. Or did that just go along with being engaged to him?

            Akane frowned. That did not sound like a flattering thought. "I hit him because he deserved it! He's a boy, and a pervert!" she stomped off in the direction he had flown. It was true, the engagement had gotten under her skin from the beginning, but… "I'm not just taking it out on him. He's an arrogant, insufferable, insulting, macho jerk!" she interrupted her guilty thoughts. 

            The way his hands brushed over her, to smooth out her dress, felt so… so… "I can't believe him! Pawing at me like that!" He was just helping out, being nice… "Ha! I know how he thinks! Any excuse to take advantage of a girl will do! It's not like he even likes me, he just gets a kick out of wrapping girls around his finger! Casanova!" she kicked a rock angrily, watching it embed itself in a privacy wall across the street as she exited the park. 

            Akane sighed. "Who am I kidding? He obviously doesn't have a clue what to do with a girl once he gets his hands on her," she grumbled, remembering the uproar Ranma caused with his innocent admission of sleeping with Copy-kun. She remembered the scared look that grew as everyone got more and more upset with what he said, the total incomprehension of the situation he seemed to be describing in harrowing detail. "Kami! Was that just two days ago?"

            Correcting for the lay of the land, or rather houses, Akane crossed the street and turned a corner, plotting a zig-zag course to where Ranma should have landed. As she walked, Akane remembered another conversation with Ranma, before the copies had taken his identity away from him. 

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_            "Don't take this the wrong way, but what's so bad about being a girl, Ranma?"_

_            Ranma almost replied without thinking. Snapping his mouth shut at the last second he remembered what Copy-kun had said the night before. "Nothin' if you happen to be a girl. It's not good if you're a guy though. I mean, what would you call a guy who tries to dress or act like a girl or chase other guys?"_

_            That was a no-brainer for Akane, "A pervert!"_

_            "Yeah. Would you wanna be called a pervert by people 'cuz you look like a girl, but they know you're supposed to be a boy?"_

_            Akane opened her mouth and stared at Ranma. She did not dare to answer. She was doing it to him all the time. After a moment, she tried another angle. "Well, if you had amnesia, and didn't know you were ever a boy, why would it be horrible to be like Copy-chan?"_

_            Ranma did not answer for a moment. He was staring at the mentioned girl, looking worried. Sighing, he explained, "Because one day I might remember, and everything I had done as a girl would be right there in my face. All the things I swore I would never do, and suddenly they would all have been done and I could never take them back. I don't know if I could live with myself after somethin' like that. I… I don't know if I could be a guy after that. I wouldn't know how to be me, I guess."_

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

            Akane sighed. If she had realized what leaving him alone for one day would do to him, she would have glued herself to his side and refused to let him go anywhere with Cologne. Ranma-chan was nothing like Copy-chan. Well, she was a girl, but she knew Ranma-chan would not be running around doing things her fragile male ego could never live down. She was just demonstrating what happened when Ranma did not know how to be himself anymore. She acted exactly the same way Ranma acted the first time Akane had ever seen him, when she thought he was a she. Completely out of her depth, and like an embarrassment to life itself. There was something really wrong with the world to make someone normally as confident as Ranma act almost ashamed to be alive. "Pervert!" her voice echoed in her head. 

            Akane cringed. Everything changed so fast, it was already too late to undo all the insults she had given, absolve herself for her part in undermining Ranma's confidence. "Damn. I just can't deal with three Ranmas. Old Ranma, new Ranma, girl Ranma, boy Ranma…" she wanted to strangle something. The person she thought of as Ranma and the person she reacted to as Ranma were of course two different people in her rational mind. Along with the name, Ranma inherited all of the things that set her off, and sucked her in. All of the guilt and sympathy that was gushing to the surface was pointed directly at the cursed version, Ranma-chan. No, she corrected herself. That's the way she wanted it. Her little guilt trip had started with how she treated HIM, and the seeds of that guilt lay in the fight itself, when Kodachi accused her of abusing Ranma. 

            As a martial artist, Akane had always taken the code very seriously. She honestly objected to people who beat up on those who were weaker than themselves, those who could not defend themselves. That was how she began fighting with boys in the first place, defending weaker kids on the playgrounds. It was how she had become so popular, or at least respected, among her peers. There were few kids in Nerima she had not personally taught a lesson to or personally protected at some point in the past ten years. Her life had been going really well until she reached high school. Her troubles had started before that, with puberty, but it came to a head because of Kuno. It had not taken her long to realize what boys had begun to see in her, and there had been the occasional idiot who had tried to "prove" himself, or start a fight just so she would flash her panties at some point in the battle. When virtually every boy in school took up Kuno's challenge, she realized they all thought about her the same way. The very idea of staring in the sick, perverted fantasies—she knew what kind of manga they all read—of so many boys had caused something to snap in her head. 

            Combined with being ambushed by larger and larger groups of boys, it did not take long for her to stop holding back. She learned to hit hard, hit fast, hit precisely enough to incapacitate in one blow, to inflict as much pain as possible without permanently crippling anyone. Even the most stubborn and insensitive boy would eventually give up and go away if he was beaten soundly enough, she was certain of it. It was just a matter of figuring out the required level of punishment. Since she was not out to kill anyone, she still had a decent crowd of "suitors" when Ranma first arrived. By then, her opinion of boys had hardened into a damning prejudice. Ranma was as tough and tenacious as Kuno, and not only did he live with her, he had the engagement as an excuse to try all sorts of perverted things with her, and her own family would cheer him on! Was it surprising that she made it a priority, a virtual reflex, to discourage any possible intimate interest he could possibly have in her?

            Akane had never once doubted the justice, the necessity of beating on Ranma. She had been grateful for any excuse. He was such a threat that she unconsciously shifted from retaliating for any physical assault (because they were conspicuously absent) to lashing out for verbal and emotional assaults. He hurt her, she was justified in hurting him back. Maybe if he had not traded insults with all the enthusiasm that went into sparring with his father, maybe if he was not as good at targeting his verbal attacks as his physical ones, she would not have felt that her only effective way of expressing herself involved instruments of blunt trauma. The fact that she almost always managed to pound him when she needed to, occasionally stunned her. She knew damned well he could defend himself. He had proven that there was nothing she could do to even touch him if he did not want her to. She would never hurt someone who could not defend themselves, but some one who WOULD not defend himself; either he had nothing but contempt for her ability or he knew he deserved to get hit. It practically guaranteed he would get hit. It was not like he had not proved he could also take anything she could dish out. 

            Well, except literally. 

            Akane clenched her fists and forced herself not to think about how he mocked her cooking. It just figured that the one thing she went out of her way to do, trying to be nice to him, he rejected vehemently. It was just proof that he had no interest in meeting her halfway, that he had no consideration for her feelings! 

            Until this week, Akane had never even imagined she could seriously injure Ranma. He could be hurt, she had seen that plenty of times, but he always bounced back miraculously. It took a real serious hit just to get his attention. But, confronted with a shaken, confused and vulnerable Ranma, Akane had proven she could restrain herself. Faced with a situation where Ranma was being destroyed before her eyes, a situation that could literally kill him, she finally grasped that he was merely human. More than that, he might actually be a decent person. Someone to be cherished and protected from those who sought to use or abuse him. 

            Someone who had vanished as quickly as she had glimpsed him, to be replaced by someone she hardly knew. Someone she should have known all along. Someone she was literally obligated to have spent most of the past year getting to know. The person behind all the posturing—and maybe Ranma had to accept who he was, as a real girl, to be able to drop all the bull-shit. What mattered was that what remained was Ranma's true character. A person who did the things that needed to be done, regardless of the personal cost. A person who refused to give up and die simply because no one else ever survived the challenge she faced. A person who worried about who she would become more than who she could no longer be. 

            Ranma-chan had shed her arrogance and machismo along with her identity and had become a much easier person to get along with. The feelings that occasionally flared up in Akane for Ranma had been encouraged by this wonderful glimpse of her humanity, making her more real, and making "Ranma" more of a caricature by comparison. The odd thing was, that boy, the new Ranma, was not a counterfeit. That was the problem. He was better than the "original" or perhaps it was more appropriate to say he truly represented the original Ranma, a normal, uncursed young man. Genma's son. Physically, mentally, emotionally, the genuine article. He was exactly what "Ranma" was supposed to be! So naturally she resented him—being engaged to him—more than ever. Just as their fathers had pushed this date in response to her matchmaking with Ranko and Ryouga, they would push for a quick marriage and the haunting thought put her more on edge than ever. 

            She had no more desire to be married now than she did when she first learned of the engagement. She had learned to like "Ranma", to respect his abilities and even appreciate some of his charm, but he had a lot of character faults and he really did know how to rub her the wrong way. He acted like a jerk, whether he knew it or not. The insults and the violence had become a feature of their relationship and she could not fix it alone. If Ranma could take her seriously, just a little, and not laugh at her all the time, even when she was… no especially when she was mad at him, she would never overcome her temper. Knowing she was overdoing it, and vowing to stop, would never amount to anything if he constantly infuriated her to the point where she could not remember such noble resolutions. 

            Her mind continued to wrestle with such thoughts as she walked. Eventually she encountered Ranma on his way back to meet her. Without speaking, they fell into step and turned towards the shopping district of Nerima in search of a place to eat. Their twice interrupted date was waiting. 

Ranma concealed his surprise at the worried expression on Akane's face when they met up. He had been doing some thinking, and clearly she had done the same. It was funny, really, but he had actually felt a kind of relief at being blasted by her. It seemed so familiar, he could almost imagine things were back to normal. Akane could be real violent, and woe to any boy who insulted her, but the truth was, she had mellowed out quite a bit. She no longer lashed out at every boy for being male. In fact she had been very nice to several, usually the ones trying to kidnap or marry her. Shinnosuke was the big exception. He was also the reason she had been creeping him out. She had begun to treat him the way she had treated Shinnosuke, and he understood now that she had been so nice out of guilt and concern, because he was dying and she felt partially responsible. She was still like that around Ranma-chan. 

            He frowned slightly. Thanks to Shampoo and Ukyo, back at the clinic, he was painfully conscious of his 'counterfeit' status, and Akane's concern for Ranma-chan suggested she did not think of him as the real Ranma either. That hurt, particularly after Ranko had rubbed his face in the feelings he quietly harbored for her and normally kept hidden even from himself. So, while he resented being hit by her as much as ever, it was comforting that at least her reflexes, her temper, recognized him as Ranma. Ranma was the only person she ever cut loose on like that. Well, for such a trivial reason, anyway. 

            After walking for a while in silence, they finally came to the restaurant Ranma had chosen for the night. It was an expensive, fine dining establishment, spared from competition with the Cat Café and Ucchan's through the simple expedient of out-classing them in every category except quality of food, where it was hit or miss. A quick consultation with Nabiki had established which dishes were exceptional and which were to be avoided, and how to make a reservation that would not disappear the instant Ranma and Akane were recognized as two of the notorious martial artists of Furinkan High. Still well funded from Nabiki's kick-backs on Monday, Ranma could afford both the advice and the bribes necessary to reach their seats. Once they were left to peruse their menus, Ranma leaned forward and whispered menu suggestions from Nabiki. Akane thanked him, and this started up conversation at last. 

            "This place is a lot nicer than I expected," Ranma commented, taking in the decor. The tables were set high, western style, with fine linen table cloths and napkins, western eating utensils, stiff, high backed chairs. He felt himself automatically slipping into the manners ingrained during his martial dining training. "I think the head chef has been on that show Kasumi and Pops like to watch," he informed her, sharing another tidbit Nabiki had armed him with.

            "Iron Chef? I think I've seen you watching as much as them," Akane smiled. She looked around, "Nabiki has brought the family here once or twice for special occasions, like when she cleared the second mortgage on the dojo. Oh, and when Kasumi graduated."

            Ranma smiled and nodded. That must have made Kasumi feel like a queen, he mused. She was so self effacing, a celebration in her honor would be like a day in heaven, too good to be true. "Well, I hope you like it. If not for Picolet, I would not be sure about going to a French restaurant. The French go for some really strange food, stuff I've only had to eat to keep from starving!" he laughed easily. 

            "You mean, like frog's legs?" she smirked.

            "Oh, just the legs? Maybe that's the trick," he looked surprised. "Well, next time I won't eat the whole thing, maybe that way I won't get sick!"

            "Oh, you didn't!" she gasped, laughing. 

            "Well, the way Pop's cooked 'em, I didn't know they were even frogs until he told me afterwards." They laughed together, companionably. Ranma decided he liked this Akane, smiling, laughing, seemingly carefree. The worried Akane made him feel like someone had set snakes loose in his belly. He sighed and composed himself. The waiter arrived and took their orders. In the silence following his retreat, Ranma found himself studying the items on the table. He realized that he had pushed his water glass as far from him as he could manage without putting it in front of Akane, and started laughing again. 

            Akane gave a confused frown, "What's so funny?"

            Ranma grinned at her and reached for his glass, "This." He carefully took a deep swallow and placed it precisely where it belonged, above his knife. "I am so used to avoiding it, I pushed my water away without even thinking about it," he chuckled slightly and gave a sigh. 

            Akane did not laugh with him. Her face went blank, almost sad. 

            "What's wrong?" he asked, frowning. 

            Akane tightened her jaw, biting back the first thing that came to her lips. She shook her head and forced a smile, "Nothing. I was just thinking."

            "Ah, damn," he sagged. "I shouldn't have reminded you."

            "No. I'm sorry, I…" Akane pleaded quickly. 

            "You don't have to dance around it," he interrupted gently. "Ukyo and Shampoo have both said it to my face. You still think I am a copy. I can understand that," he sighed.

            "I don't know what to think. It's just strange. All of it."

            "You know, I remember your reaction when Nabiki told me I was being replaced by my copy," he confessed impulsively. She looked at him startled. He gave her a grim smile. "It's funny, isn't it? To me, Copy-kun was both a different person, an' about two days of having no memories of who I was. For me, I walked into a room, sort of like walking into a dream, an' when I walked out, I was cured. I knew before I even walked out what I was walking away from. Not just the curse, but from my old life. The old mummy warned me I lost more than just the ability to become a girl, and I didn't understand. I didn't want to understand."

            Akane stared at him, trying to understand what he was saying. 

            Ranma took a deep breath and shrugged, when she remained stumped. "I can't argue that this isn't a copy of my body," he pointed out, casually. "My first instinct was to think of the other Ranma as the copy, the flawed version. But every now and then we fall into the same pattern of thoughts or actions, an' I realize that she's me. Both of them, really. Ranko has it bad, 'cuz she… it's her worst nightmare come true. I feared it more than death, from the day Herb locked my curse. Once I knew it could happen, I feared the day it WOULD happen. Ranma-chan, though. She makes me ashamed of everything I am, 'cuz, while I haven't changed or done nothin', I've taken everything away from her, forced her to become what she is." He looked down at his hands, which had dropped and folded in his lap. 

            "Do you wish you never came back out of the mirror?" Akane sought out his eyes. She was trying real hard to understand what he was telling her, calling on the story Cologne had told them. "You were a girl when you pulled Ranko out, there was no reflection of a boy in the mirror until you changed. It would not have been the same as leaving her in the mirror."

            "I wondered if anyone else would see that," he sighed. A bitter laugh escaped him. Meeting her eyes he smiled sadly, "It's sort of funny. I made the decision as… thinkin' I'd be stuck with the curse, knowing that I'd lose it all, and I did it for Ranko. I did it so she would not have to face this alone," he rubbed his hands over his face then stopped covering his eyes and resting the weight of his head on the table through his elbows. In a very subdued voice, he confessed, "I was supposed to be where Ranma-chan is."

            "You won by losing," she realized, softly. 

            "I got what I really wanted, when I no longer wanted it," he nodded. Straightening, he squared his shoulders and hardened his features. His eyes were focused on something only he could see. "There was one good reason for this," he declared. "It was Pop's idea, but it was on 'Ranko's' mind when I let her out of the mirror. 'Ranma' had to be a true man for my Mom. I made that decision the morning he confronted me with his plan to make Copy-kun me. I didn't think it would be ME, but I wanted to be able to give her that. I made promises to myself, one of them Ranma-chan has kept, by giving everything up. This one, I have to keep. I am here because I love my Mother more than life itself. This, living like this, is the promise I have to keep to Ranma-chan and Ranko."

            Akane felt herself sagging under the emotional weight of this confession. Taking deep breaths to keep tears from coming to her eyes, she told herself she had the answer she was looking for. That real human being she saw in Ranma-chan, that she hoped existed in her reflection; she had found him. "You were about to say something, about my reaction to your Dad's plan, before you explained this. Is there some connection?" she asked hesitantly. 

            He fiddled with his napkin in silence for a moment, not sure if he should answer. He had changed tracks to avoid it, but what he had said instead almost made it worse. "I know you don't want the engagement. I also knew…" he sighed and tried to meet her eyes again. "I also knew when I made the decision to 'bring Copy-kun' back, that even if I didn't you'd still be stuck with it. I knew if I did, you'd think I was trying to get out of it. It sorta felt like that, too, since I didn't think I'd be here." He looked down and gestured to himself. 

            "You're not exactly Copy-kun," Akane pointed out, trying to head him off. The truth was, it had bothered her at the time, the idea of losing Ranma just when it started to seem possible to genuinely care for him, and being stuck with a facsimile she KNEW was a complete pervert. "I admit it's been difficult to believe you really are Ranma, not just a copy with all his memories. But I don't think I really knew you, either of you, well enough to understand the difference. Not until now," she confessed, blushing. 

            "Huh?" he sat back in confusion, that really surprised him. 

            "I didn't expect this," she clarified, gesturing at him vaguely. "I thought it would take forever for Copy-kun to remember being Ranma, but instead, he goes away one morning and that afternoon THREE Ranmas come home. You were all so much alike everyone's focusing on the differences and making a big deal out of them because none of us can deal with you being in three places at once."

            "Heh! You should try it from this side!" he crossed his arms. 

            "From what I can see, it's a wonder you're all sane and haven't tried to kill each other," she frowned, taking a sip of water and looking down. 

            "If it'd caught me by surprise, if I hadn't spent the night thinking about it before hand, I probably would've completely lost it," he admitted. "I'd hate havin' what's happening to the other two happenin' to me, but it bothers me a lot more to be watchin' it happen from the side. It's a lot easier for me to understand what's happening to Ranko, I had to face that, all of it, with the chisuiiton and the koi-rod and Picolet. I can imagine all a' that happenin' at once, an' know what she's goin' through. Sorta all balances itself out. I think I could survive that. What I hate is what's happening to the other me."

            "Me too," Akane folded her hands on the table and studied him. She returned to the point he had yet to fully explain and frowned. "What you were saying, then, is that she made the decision for you to be here. She's the reason I am 'stuck' with you?"

            Ranma winced at her emphasis of his wording, but nodded. 

            "But you, since it was you at the time, weren't trying to get out of the engagement," she stated, picking up on the concern he had expressed. 

            "This engagement was not our choice," he pointed out. "We've both said that enough times, it'd be stupid to say we wouldn't wanna get out of it. It's a matter of honor, though, so we put up with it. Together. In a way, it kinda put us both on the same side. Us verses our dads. It kinda means we have to depend on each other, or bad stuff, like what happened with Nabiki, ends up happenin'." Ranma could see from the expression twisting Akane's face that his words were either confusing her or starting to freak her out. "Aww, man! I'm just not good at talking about stuff like this! What I mean is, there was no way in hell I was gonna let my old man hitch you up with Copy-kun. This engagement is my obligation. But I can't object to 'myself' as a substitute, so there was nothing I could do to convince you I was not leaving you in the dust to marry some jerk in my place."

            Akane carefully tried not to comment on that. Her face betrayed her.

            "As far as I am concerned, I am still here. I ain't gone nowhere. If anything I've actually fixed a problem since you no longer have to worry about bein' engaged part-time to a girl," he pushed on, ignoring the look that spoke volumes about the "jerk" she had already been engaged to. 

            Akane stared at him for a long time, realizing that Ranma felt he had explained what he originally meant. The other things he had said, when he was trying to dodge the point, suddenly clicked into place. Akane frowned in concern, "You're saying she… you… did this for me?"

            Ranma nodded once. "You and Mom," he clarified. 

            Akane sat in stunned silence.

            After a while, Ranma cleared his throat, "Of course, that just creates a new problem." Akane tilted her head, waiting for him to go on, unable to speak yet. Ranma sighed. "As soon as it's safe for me to meet Mom, Pops and Mr. Tendo are going to rush us directly to a priest or something to get us married and seal the deal permanently. Even with the curse, it was hard to keep them from pushing, but really it was because of Mom they never pulled it off. Mom would kill Pops if she missed the wedding. I am sure he thought me being married would balance out the curse, prove me manly enough somehow that she wouldn't force us to commit seppuku, but there still would have been hell to pay for makin' her miss the big day."

            "It occurred to me too," Akane finally spoke. 

            "I don't wanna be married, and I don't think you do either…"

            "I…" Akane tried to interrupt. 

            "It's not you, Akane. It's us," he cut her off. "For one thing, we're way too young. We can hardly get along on a date, and there is no way we could get married without Shampoo and Ukyo, or Kodachi, flipping out and trying to stop it. Shampoo gave you the kiss of death, for cryin' out loud! If I had not made it very clear that I would kill her if she tried to follow up on that, she would have found some way of murdering you already."

            Akane flinched. "You're kidding! You don't think she'd dare…?"

            Ranma sighed, "When she was after me, she was not jokin' around, Akane. I don't think she's ever killed anyone before, and I don't know if she could do it without hesitating. You didn't defeat her in combat, so she can probably only act against you if you become an 'obstacle' and getting married to me would guarantee that!"

            Akane paused in thought. 

            "At least you only have the one engagement to worry about, but you also have to deal with the mess I am in. It would be stupid to rush ahead with all that up in the air," he complained. 

            "Did you really threaten Shampoo?"

            "She knows how it is," he evaded. "It's one thing if people try to kill me, I'm sorta getting used to it, an' it's not that different from all the people chasin' after me for stuff that Pops or Happosai's done. Threatenin' my friends or family, though, I'll never stand for that."

            Akane decided not to press the question, and switched tracks. "You say you accepted the engagement to me out of obligation to your family. Out of honor. What about the other engagements?"

            "People think it's just a matter of me picking the girl I want," he snorted. "The fact is, there's usually someone else's honor somehow at stake. The ones I could get out of I've dealt with as they've come up. For some, all they had to do is see the curse in action, and they'd drop it. Then there's the ones from stupid scams my old man pulled, but if no one was gonna get hurt I could fight my way out of 'em. Some have been plain dumb, some jerk fallin' all over himself to marry my girl side for one stupid reason or another." Ranma scowled and brushed those aside with a wave of his hand. "Kodachi is just plain crazy, and there will never be anything there. She's only around 'cuz she keeps butting in. Ukyo…" he sighed.

            "She's your friend, and your father took her dowry," Akane noted.

            "Exactly. Pops totally dismissed her, but there's a debt there I can't ignore. That is a matter of family honor, and I have to face it since he won't. Shampoo, however,"  he rolled his eyes, "she's a problem we both created, and I just don't know how to deal with her. Apart from the fact she might actually kill anyone who gets in her way, she does have honor at stake. She can't just walk away from me without losing face, or worse."

            "Do you… want any of us?' Akane asked timidly.

            "I don't dare make a choice," Ranma shrugged. "If I choose one, I offend the honor of the others. Since they're all arrangements to satisfy honor, I don't have any choices to begin with. The point is, as long as these other claims are valid, there's no honorable way our parents can force us to get married. I can't get out of it, and you can't get out of it, but there's a chance Ukyo and Shampoo will find other men to marry, and abandon their claim to me. All we have to do is make our parents see that, and we have as long as it takes for them to find someone else to figure out what to do about our engagement."

            Akane took careful note of the expression on Ranma's face and realized he had been driving toward this from the beginning. This had been some kind of plan that had evolved while Ranma was dealing with his father's scheme to replace him. It did not take a genius to see that Genma had only been concerned with pushing the marriage forward, using whatever means he could. Going into detail about how conscious he had been of Akane being stuck with the engagement, how the "cure" made it more likely they would be forced to marry sooner, then finally coming up with a decent explanation for why he was stringing all of his fiancées along, Ranma was "doing it all for her". It worked for him, too, but he was proposing it to her, why else point out that they were "on the same side"? It was a nice idea, if they both objected to the marriage, to team up to postpone it inevitably, but there was one thing he had missed. "Uh, I hate to ruin your plans, but they already have, I think."

            "What?"

            "They're both after Ranma-chan," Akane pointed out. 

            "Oh no…" Ranma paled. 

            "Yeah, so what you were about to suggest, how we could keep stalling our dads? I don't think that will work," Akane sighed. 

Ranko studied Ryouga from across the table, while her thoughts tumbled back to their arrival at the restaurant. In spite of Nodoka's warning, they arrived with time to spare, so while Ryouga waited, Nodoka ushered Ranko to the ladies room for a "chat". That was enough to set the boy turned girl on edge, but Nodoka mistook her nervousness for something else. Something she wanted to address before excusing herself while the two of them ate. Because the lavatory was occupied when they entered, she ushered Ranko into a stall and entered one herself. Since she had no clue why Nodoka dragged her in there, she spent the next few minutes trying to figure out how to go to the bathroom without getting completely undressed. Finally deciding on the same solution that occurred to her for fighting in the slinky outfit, she hiked the dress up around her waist, slipped her panties down and tried her hardest to ignore the sounds emanating from the surrounding stalls while she relieved herself. Fortunately, two women were going about their business without a pause in their loud conversation. Unfortunately, the topic of their conversation was one Ranko had never imagined two women would speak so openly, and in great detail, about. 

            "And Akane thinks BOYS are perverts!" she huffed, her face burning. 

            The distinct sound of Nodoka's laughter informed her that her comment had not been as quiet as she thought. Soon enough, the scandalous conversation drifted out the door, with the women who laughing over Ranko's comment. Ranko slunk out of the stall to wash her hands, and found her mother waiting to talk to her. 

            "Ranko-chan, I think those ladies have provided a perfect excuse to bring up a topic I have been meaning to speak with you about," she smiled, turning the faucet and quickly washing her own hands. Ranko whipped around to stare at her in shock. Her mother wanted to talk to her about sex!? The terror must have shown in her eyes, since Nodoka began to laugh again. "Oh, my! I can see you've never had to talk about this with anyone before. I would have thought Kasumi might have taken you aside by now."

            Ranko boggled even more. "Ka-Ka-Kasumi!?" She swallowed. She would have sworn, if anyone alive had been more oblivious about sex than herself, it had to be sweet, innocent Kasumi. 

            Nodoka sighed, and offered a motherly smile. As intended it did calm the girl down a bit. "I imagine that most of what you know about sex comes from overhearing talk such as that. That is quite insufficient for a well mannered lady. At your age, girls are quite susceptible to being taken advantage of, by their own hormones and ignorance, as much as by the boys who court them. A girl as pretty as yourself should not start dating without certain knowledge and precautions, because, however well meaning, and however unintentional, things can get quite sticky before you know it."

            "Mo- Auntie Nodoka! I am NOT going to be sleeping with Ryouga!" Ranko declared hotly. The very idea was frightening, worse because even as she denied it, the idea set off all sorts of strange, compelling feelings. 

            "Oh, Ranko-chan! I am sure you were not thinking of doing that. While you seem to lack a certain feminine modesty, you are not entirely lacking in common sense. A girl like yourself could not have been so close to a boy such as my son without possessing a great deal of restraint. Just the same, there's no magical curse to discourage you and Ryouga," she pointed out. "So, I just want to make sure you are prepared."

            "I, uh, really ain't- am not interested in mess- taking risks with sex. The last thing I can deal with right now is being pregnant!" she declared with conviction. She was glad Copy-chan had sorted out that mystery before taking her experiments with "making love" too far! 

            "Quite so! I am glad to see you understand the consequences of that! Too many girls, even today, grow up uninformed about the simple basics of human reproduction. It's scandalous!" Nodoka shook the water from her hands and dried them on a towel. Seeing Ranko had done the same, she took a moment to help straighten the girl's dress and check her hair, continuing, "Now, the first question is, have you been seen by a gynecologist?"

            Ranko frowned. She was not too sure, but she seemed to recall the Tendo sisters occasionally had appointments to see a gynecologist, but the one time she asked what it was about, Nabiki had gotten a scary look on her face, splashing her with cold water, and threatened to take "her" along to find out for herself. At the time, anything that required being female to participate in she objected to out of hand. "Uh, Nabiki sort of gave me the idea that I really would not want to do that," she hedged.

            Nodoka looked unexpectedly upset, "That girl! I never expected she could be so irresponsible!"

            "I don't- I am not even sure what a gynecologist is," Ranko intercepted, explaining, "She knew that, so she was just teasing me! I am sure it's just, ah, something that she knew would make me really uncomfortable. She probably meant no harm." Ranko could not believe she was defending Nabiki. Even so, Nodoka still frowned and muttered something about having a talk with the middle Tendo daughter. 

            "It is uncomfortable, to be sure, but it is a necessity for women's health. Well then, it's safe to assume you have not started on birth control," Nodoka sighed and began to fumble in her purse. She pulled out a small black evening bag and handed it to Ranko. "I forgot to give this to you earlier, but I didn't think you would have to carry anything on your date, with me along." She reached into her purse again and pulled out a handful of foil wrapped packages. Ranko recognized them by sight, having seen boys trading them in the locker room at school. She handed all but one of them to Ranko, "Put these in your purse, and make sure you have them handy at all times. Now, do you know what a condom is for and how to use it?"

            Ranko paled and then blushed. The answer to the question was a resounding no, save for the fact that she could define the word in context. She was positive she did not want to hear more on this subject, since she already knew from Hiroshi and Daisuke that it figured intimately in the act they fantasized about so avidly, which for her had only recently become recognized as sex. Unable to speak, she shook her head. 

            Nodoka sighed. The poor girl REALLY needed a mother. "Don't they have a sex education program at your school?" she asked in a pained voice. 

            Ranko blanched. Good Heavens! Did the actually teach THAT at school!? Swallowing painfully she blurted, "I hope not!"

            Nodoka barely restrained herself from kissing the floor. Clearly the girl had some notion what sex was, and completely the wrong idea what sex education was. "I can see you and I have a few busy weekends ahead of us, young lady. They do not teach children to have sex in school, if that's what you are worried about," she corrected primly, eyebrows arched in chagrin. "At the risk of shocking you, I am going to cover the basics, since this is the only protection I can give you at the moment, aside from taking the pair of you straight home."

            Ranko groaned in despair. It had to be a nightmare! 

            It had been agonizing to stand through the lecture and demonstration, trying not to wonder why her mother carried an object so well suited to the lesson in her purse. It was bad enough that when she stared at it her mother promised they would go shopping to buy Ranko one of her own, though she winked and assured the girl she should figure out what to do with it on her own. Once Nodoka was satisfied that Ranko understood how to apply this lesson to a situation involving Ryouga, she led them out of the restroom and over to the table where they spotted him waiting nervously. Ranko could not imagine how he could possibly be as nervous as she, now. She also wondered why her dress did not burst into flames from the heat of her furious blush. Even through ordering and the arrival of their meal, her mind was haunted by what her mother had caused her to envision. Poor Ryouga was so flustered by the way she was staring at him, he had not managed to utter a single coherent word. 

            "Ryouga?" she finally asked. 

            "Ah! I… Um… Wh-wha- er… R-Ra-Ranko?" he stammered. 

            "What are you so nervous about?"

            "Wh-why d-do you k-ke-keep LOOKING at me l-like y-you wanna EAT m-me?" he heroically fought his way through the whole question. 

            Ranko blushed and tried to make a joke out of it, "Um. They didn't have any pork items on the menu?" Ryouga flinched, his chopsticks flung across the room as he recoiled away from her. She grinned. "Just kidding! I mean it, I was just kidding!"

            Ryouga glared at her hatefully. 

            Feeling absolutely horrid, remembering too late just how traumatized he was by people's attempts—her own father's attempts!—to eat him, and bowed her head. Clearing her throat, she confided, "Actually, I am sorta freakin' out because my Mom just taught me how to use a condom." As intended, that distracted him from her insult. The food he was chewing spurted out of his mouth, spraying the man at the next table, as Ryouga convulsed in shock. From the sound of it, the woman at the table behind Ranko had also done a spit-take all over her date. At least she was laughing about it, Ryouga was too busy keeling over in his chair with a resounding thud. 


	26. The Art of Dating, Step Two: Anticipatio...

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Twenty-Six: The Art of Dating, Step Two: Anticipation

The slim form of a girl paused in the pool of light spilling from a street lamp. With a casual hand, she brushed a few stray hairs out of her face. She frowned, crossing her arms and tapping an arched knuckle against her lower lip. Ryouga had proved to be even more dense than Ranma, but that hardly came as a surprise to Nabiki. Her efforts to hint to the boy the possible consequences of having his curse triggered in front of Nodoka had been wasted, and even the more blatant offer of "insurance", comprised of passing on a direct warning and constructive advice, had fallen on deaf ears. It was annoying that she had failed to make a sufficient impression on Ryouga. How was she supposed to be helpful, without completely blowing her image, if the idiot failed to realize that even with a price her advice was valuable and important? Shaking her head, she realized she should have made more of an effort to pry Ranko away from her mother so she could have talked to the girl instead. With a dismissive sigh, she shrugged. Bribing teenage punks to try and douse Ryouga had been enough to alert the couple to the danger, and it had not hurt her image any to do it. It might even prompt one of them to come demanding the advice she had after all. 

            Besides, if she had not decided to stalk the couple for that purpose, she would have missed the encounter between Kuno and Nodoka. She grinned. Oh, that was just priceless! What better spokesman for the warped truth could there be? Nabiki made a note to work out a way to untangle the eventual mess Nodoka's "enlightenment" would cause if she happened to be confronted by the truth. It would be a bit harder than explaining how Ranma kept turning up in girls' clothes because of Happosai, but, with all the facts on Kuno it would be possible to convince Nodoka that no one had outright lied to her. 

            "I just hope it isn't necessary," Nabiki breathed. "Now, the main question is, what did I miss while I was dragging Kuno home?" This had been bothering her since she stopped by Dr. Tofu's clinic to pass on the details of Kuno and Nodoka's meeting to Ranma-chan, and make sure she had been warned about her mother staying for the night. Finding the clinic unlocked, but occupied solely by a charred and babbling Happosai, greatly disturbed her. She sensed there had been some kind of battle, and from the signs there had been time to straighten, clean, and effect minor repairs to the clinic. A quick call from the clinic to the restaurant where Ranma was supposed to be taking her sister established that they had arrived and not caused any disturbances. Unable to get two coherent words out of Happosai, she had left, locking the clinic up and placing the spare key where Dr. Tofu normally hid it.  

            "There was no answer at the Nekohanten," she added to her mental tally. "I suppose I should just swing by home first. Ranma-chan might have needed to get some things while Nodoka was gone, if she learned she had to sleep somewhere else tonight. Since Dr. Tofu was supposed to be watching her, he probably went with her." Well, it was a plausible scenario, and the Cat Café was further away from where she was at the moment. 

            Nabiki resumed walking and soon arrived at her family's home. Announcing her arrival, while slipping out of her shoes and coat, she was immediately alerted to trouble by the absence of a response from Kasumi. In bare feet, she slipped soundlessly toward the Tea Room, hoping to pick up some conversation to clue her in to what was going on. 

            "I still say we should just splash her with hot water," Genma's voice could be heard arguing. "I don't see why that won't work if it did the trick the first time!" From the tone of his voice, he was arguing a moot point, and had been for some time. Nabiki could guess immediately who he was talking about, and from the context guessed that someone had cornered Ranma-chan with a cat. 

            "I agree with Saotome-kun," Soun whined in typical support of his friend.

            "I have already explained to you both the danger Ranma-chan faces in this instance," that was Dr. Tofu, and from the strained sound of his voice, there was something seriously wrong that Nabiki could not account for. She held her breath, hoping the doctor would feel the need to explain things from the top. Fortunately, precedent was on her side. "Fa Shen was in full possession of Ranma-chan's body when I triggered the curse the first time. I suspect the shock of the turning into a boy startled her enough for Ranma-chan to reassert herself, but unlike her cat personality, I expect Fa Shen would not be dislodged that way a second time. She's an intelligent girl and quite capable of adapting to a situation once she is familiar with it. However, neither of them is in control at the moment, so triggering the curse might induce a coma. In her present condition, I do not think Ranma-chan could survive more than a day in such a state."

            "But we can't just sit here and do nothing!" Genma protested. To Nabiki's surprise he seemed to be in genuine distress. Unless she was seriously mistaken, that was real parental concern coming from a man who had turned abuse and neglect into an art form.

            "Tofu-sensei, I mean no disrespect, but is it wise to leave the girl under Cologne's ministrations? I don't see how Ranma's personality can reassert itself with those amazons crowding her, if their presence is what provoked this Fa Shen personality in the first place," Soun complained. Nabiki's eyebrows shot up. Her father was not completely dense, but someone must have spelled things out for him in detail to make him argue a point in his "it's a martial artist's duty to protect the weak" manner. 

            Nabiki quickly shifted what she had learned through her mind and considered the picture that developed. Nodding, she walked into the room and announced, "I am sure Ranma-chan will be delighted to know you two are so concerned about her. I thought you would be cheering her on to become Fa Shen at the first opportunity."

            "Nabiki!? When did you get here? Do you know what is going on?"

            Some version of that came from all three men, but she focused on the loudest voice, Genma's, and smiled. "I just got here, Mr. Saotome. If I am correct, the ghost of Fa Shen has reared her head?" she quirked an eyebrow, and waited for the nods. "Well, that complicates things. I better go see if Sis needs some help upstairs," she excused herself, careful not to mention Kasumi's name in Tofu's presence. 

            Slinking quietly up the stairs, she positioned herself outside the guest room and perked an ear to the conversation inside. In a moment, she confirmed that the three amazons were indeed present, along with Ukyo and Kasumi. Thinking back to the visits of both rival fiancées, and pondering the fact that, if her father had been correct, the amazons supposedly provoked the emergence of Fa Shen's ghost, Nabiki herself had a hand in creating this situation. She had hoped the attention from Shampoo would be good for Ranma-chan, and it burned in her gut to learn she had been wrong. Soaking up the quiet debate between the three teens and Cologne, Nabiki filled in the holes and considered the situation. 

            "Fa Shen become part of Airen before Airen split into reflections!" Shampoo interrupted Mousse, who was going on about what would happen if Ranma-chan was allowed to claim her amazon identity. "Shampoo no can kill Ranko! Is also Fa Shen inside!"

            "Wait a second, Sugar," Ukyo cut in. "If that's true then this could also happen to Ranma and Ranko! That's crazy! They can't all be Fa Shen!"

            "Is so, just like all can be Ranma!" Shampoo huffed. 

            "That is something to be concerned about," Cologne moderated, quieting the rest. "Obviously the legends about resurrection through a Jusenkyo curse need to be reexamined, since I certainly did not expect Son-In-Law to obtain anything more than the memories of his former incarnation. The girl who possessed Ranma-chan has a will of her own, to be certain."

            "You knew about Fa Shen all along," Ukyo challenged. Nabiki resisted the urge to peer around the door way to see her expression. "You expect us to believe you weren't hoping Ranma would become her? If you were at all concerned about Ranma, you could have at least warned everyone that something like this could happen!"

            "I am certain no one would have believed me," Cologne uttered dryly, after delivering a solid rap to Ukyo's head. "I sincerely doubt Fa Shen could have surfaced like this if Ranma-chan's psyche had not been weakened by doubts and uncertainties caused by the existence of her reflections. In his rightful mind, Ranma would have been too self possessed for her to gain a foothold, since the very idea of being reborn as a man would repel Fa Shen. For the same reason, I doubt Fa Shen could possess Ranma and Ranko in their current states."

            "But it's possible?" Mousse asked hesitantly.

            Cologne must have nodded, because a triumphant Shampoo crowed, "There! Stupid Mousse understand now? No can try stupid scheme, kill Ranko and make Shampoo Mousse slave!"

            "Certainly not!" Mousse huffed, then mumbled, "Not if that just forces the old mummy to kill you so your honor is restored!" A skull ringing thwack followed. 

            "I am not deaf, you know." The distinctive sound of cloth fluttering as a body burst into motion proceeded another cranial concussion that rang through the walls. Cologne added with slightly more indignation. "I am not feeble either, you insolent pup! If you can't surprise me in my sleep, or slip me poisoned food, what makes you think you can get the drop on me from across the room?"

            "Mousse has been trying to kill you!?" Ukyo and Kasumi asked in surprise. 

            "I am afraid that Son-In-Law has been a bad influence on Mousse. I am certain he thinks that if he can just defeat me, he could prove himself worthy of Shampoo. I made the mistake of informing him that if he ever succeeded in besting me, he had better take advantage of the opportunity to kill me, since it's a sure thing I will whip him within an inch of his pathetic life for his impertinence! Ironically, that equates to a command from an elder with the force of law," she cackled. "I will say this, it does keep an old woman on her toes!"

            "I will never understand you amazons," Ukyo groused. 

            Nabiki strained her ribs trying to suppress her laughter. There was a long pause before Cologne spoke again. "Well, Ranma-chan's pulse is strong and her temperature is back to normal. I take that as a sign she will be rejoining us shortly."

            "Or Fa Shen," Ukyo lamented. 

            "Shampoo think Fa Shen pretty nice, too bad is dead girl come back to haunt Airen. Is good no can give kiss of death to amazon womans, Shampoo not think be fun to kiss ghost! Not seem right give again kiss of death to Ranma-chan!" There was a strangled sound from Mousse. 

            "I have hot water ready if Ranma-chan is possessed when she wakes up," Kasumi informed everyone cheerfully. Nabiki smiled, that was her sister, always willing to banish demons and ghosts with a gracious apology and a smile. Nabiki decided she had sponged up enough information to make an appearance.

            "I see that becoming a girl hasn't diminished Ranma-chan's appeal to the women in her life," Nabiki commented, entering just behind Shampoo and Ukyo. Seeing the two martial artists stiffen in shock sent a thrill of pleasure through Nabiki. 

            "Welcome home, Nabiki!" Kasumi beamed. 

            "I was wondering when you would show up," Cologne smirked. 

            "Someone had to make sure Ranko and Ryouga didn't get away from Mrs. Saotome before they all got on the train. That gives us a couple hours to get Ranma-chan here packed up and hidden away before her mother shows up and everything goes pear shaped." 

Fa Shen and Ranma-chan returned to the porch overlooking the pond and resumed their seats in confusion. Coming to an agreement about their situation had not altered their circumstances in the least. In whatever corner of oblivion they had become lodged, with respect to the waking world, there seemed to be no obvious way for either of them to get out. A quick tour of the scene they found themselves in proved to be a detailed approximation of the Tendo Dojo, allowing Ranma-chan to fill her compatriot in on the specifics of her current home, but it did not provide any clues for how Ranma-chan was supposed to wake up. Her effort before that, closing her eyes and trying to will herself to wake up, had also proved fruitless. She choked down her rising alarm and tried to think of what to do, but in the realm of martial arts there was no technique or discipline particularly suited to this instance.

            "I just don't get it," she muttered, scowling. 

            "I think this is my fault," Fa Shen winced. She thought about what she had experienced and done as Ranma-chan fought off her possession. "I mean, you were trying to shove me down, and I somehow dragged you down with me. Obviously that sent us someplace different from where one of is locked away while the other has control."

            "It's kinda like a dream," Ranma-chan nodded. "I've had a lot of dreams where I knew I was dreaming, but I couldn't wake up. I'm sure there's something in here that'll snap me awake, I just haven't figured out what it is yet."

            Fa Shen considered that and nodded. She allowed her thoughts to wander as Ranma-chan went back to studying the pond for inspiration. Confronting Ranma-chan had allowed her to get things sorted out, let her mind adjust to her death and resurrection. Reincarnation was a concept she could understand much better than resurrection. She had grown up with the idea that one day she would die, and later she would be reborn as a completely different person. There were those who could remember past lives, but they were just memories. In her case, she was literally back from the dead. Considering that she had been murdered, her life mercilessly cut short, she hoped the fact did not completely unbalance her karma. Ranma-chan was safe just remembering Fa Shen's life, but if she had actually become Fa Shen, as she seemed to be considering, it would wreak absolute havoc with Ranma-chan's karma. That was not just some fear of losing her identity and existence to Ranma-chan talking, either. Fa Shen suspected it would be just as bad for her to try and assume Ranma-chan's place. No, there was a unique path for both of them, they just needed to figure out how to walk it. Her future started with where she was now; her first step was dealing with it. She blinked and shook her head. It was mind boggling to sit there and get to know the person she had become, a person she was not simply because Jusenkyo had frozen her at the moment of her death and then thrust her onto Ranma-chan. A cold chill raced down her spine and through her limbs. 

            Her eyes widened as she continued to look at Ranma-chan. It had finally hit her. When she drowned at Jusenkyo, not only had her life been stolen from her, but Ranma-chan's life had been stolen from her as well. This was a lot more than being in two places at the same time. Ranma-chan was literally another person who just happened to have the same soul as herself. She could not be Ranma-chan without ceasing to be herself! That was why they had both been oblivious to each other. Fa Shen had not GONE anywhere when Ranma-chan was in control; she had BEEN Ranma-chan and Fa Shen had ceased to exist. Except as a bunch of untapped memories. She strangled a cry of shock.

            Ranma-chan turned toward her in alarm, "What is it!?"

            "Oh, gods," Fa Shen blanched. "You're not going to like this…"

            Ranma-chan urged her to explain, her face growing paler as Fa Shen led her through the logic of her revelation. After repeating her thoughts, she went on, "The situation with you and I is different from the situation with you and your reflections. Actually, since you and I came together with the curse, they probably have my memories as well as yours, so they are our reflections. The situation you and I are in is similar to what happens to victims of the Chaunshontsuniichaun." Ranma-chan's glazed eyes and blank face told Fa Shen that she had no clue what she was getting at. Blushing and clearing her throat, she offered, "Maybe I should just compare the effects of the spring to the effects of this mirror you have told me about."

            "I think I am going to get a headache," Ranma-chan moaned.

            "Sorry, my mind is racing," Fa Shen took a deep breath. "Alright, I've seen cursed twins, and I also studied Ranma, the male reflection. Cursed twins do not share ki, the way we do with the reflections. When the curse is triggered by cold water, the original person ceases to exist and two exact incarnations of her take her place. They don't share ki, each one is as perfect as the original, each one is independent. When the curse is triggered by hot water, the twins cease to exist and a new 'original' manifests, possessing all the memories of both twins. The same thing seems to happen with the mirror, as far as memories go, but the process never makes the reflections independent. They're actually projections of the original."

            "Projections?" Ranma-chan scratched her head in confusion. 

            "Yes," Fa Shen nodded. "The difference is in the magic. A Jusenkyo curse is hard to get rid of, because it actually becomes a part of the victim during the first transformation. The magic is really powerful. It creates and destroys. In the blink of an eye, it destroys one body and creates another. That way, the magic is only operating for an instant, the rest of the time the victim is perfectly normal." She paused to allow Ranma-chan to think.

            Ranma-chan frowned and tried to put it into terms she could understand. "So, a curse is like a special technique. Say, like the Cat Fist. I 'learned' it, making it a part of me, but I can't control it."

            "Did you say 'Cat Fist'?" Fa Shen recoiled in horror. 

            Ranma-chan nodded. 

            "I… no, we can talk about that later," Fa Shen shuddered and forced herself to push that aside. There would be time to make Ranma-chan tell her in detail how she had been subjected to that horror, and find out if there were any other such traumas and abominations rooted in her psyche. "If you mean what I think you mean, then that's a good example. What we call magic is something that exists in all of us. The trick being to know how to do something with it, and in the case of Jusenkyo, that 'knowledge' is branded into the psyche. Traditional Masters of the Shokei Fist were those who could take a curse and get control over it…"

            "What!?" Ranma-chan interrupted. "Did you say it was possible to CONTROL a curse?"

            "Yes, but, let me finish what I was trying to explain," she snapped.

            "Uh, sorry. Go on," Ranma-chan hunched down meekly.

            "Right, so, the magic of a curse does it's job in a flash, and then goes dormant. The mirror is very different, I think. From what I see, the magic exists entirely in the mirror, and it stays active to maintain the reflections of its victims. Basically, it's forcing us to be in two… sorry, three places at once. It's got us spread out keeping the different bodies alive."

            "Um, if that's so, how could it work as a cure then?" Ranma-chan quickly repeated the assumptions they were currently working with. 

            "Obviously, the curse makes some kind of difference, if the only survivor of the mirror was a curse victim," Fa Shen qualified, propping her elbows on her knees thoughtfully. "My guess is that a cursed original acts as the focus of the magic, and the reflections just the effect. At the same time, it's the weak point. The mirror sucks the ki away from the cursed original and pours it all in the reflections. The original survives because the ki naturally flows back to its center. If the ki of the victim is stretched to the breaking point, the naked center is most vulnerable. The only thing the center can do is attempt to draw ki back to itself. The reflections have the advantage of being able to contain their ki, and a sudden demand would cause them to seal themselves off. Under normal circumstances, the original would die from a lack of ki, but the mirror is still actively draining the center, to the point where it literally unravels that body to suck up every last trace of ki. The original ceases to exist, and the final effects of the mirror's magic is to shunt the ki to the reflections. Assuming a normal curse victim, and not something like us, if the reflections survive the trauma of having the original's ki ripped in half, they both eventually recover and become independent entities," Fa Shen straightened her legs, leaning back and bracing her arms behind her while she stared out at the horizon. "I don't see how that would help you or I."

            "You don't have to say that twice," Ranma-chan frowned and shrugged. "Okay, so, you were saying that you and me are like cursed twins. I did not follow that part."

            "We're like that because we are two different people with the same soul. I am sure if we tried, we could remember each other's lives, but we both have our own unique perspective. By definition, I can't be you and you can't be me. The only way for you to be me is to BE me, and I am not you. Get it?"

            "Uh…" Ranma-chan's face contorted as she worked that out. "Sure. I mean, that's what it means to be you. Oh!" she finally understood what Fa Shen was getting at. She was right, Ranma-chan did not like it. "But, I don't understand how that can work. How can I just cease to exist, even if I am you?"

            "Um, you don't. You still exist, you're just me. It's 'Ranma-chan' who ceases to exist," she explained carefully. 

            Ranma-chan blinked a couple of times as she repeated that to herself. For some reason this concept seemed really important. It seemed to touch heavily upon the struggle she had been going through since her return from Mirror Mansion. It had been plaguing her, how could she just give up being Ranma? How could she survive that? If she succeeded, and it sure looked like she had, who was she if she was not Ranma? It had been surprisingly easy to let go of her masculine personality, though she had clung to the fragment of female psyche she had discovered and had been rebuilding her identity around it. Strangely, that had protected her from becoming Fa Shen, caused her to be someone who could not be Fa Shen. But who? She opened her eyes and whispered, "My self."

            "What?" Fa Shen had no clue what that was supposed to mean. 

            "I am me," Ranma-chan elaborated, a look of confidence coming back to her. Fa Shen tilted her head in continuing confusion. "I mean, I am not Ranma. I am me. Ranma is who I thought I was, but Ranma was me." Fa Shen's eyes narrowed in irritation. Ranma-chan sighed, realizing that her point was not coming across. "Ranma and Ranko are both identities I associate with myself, but they're not who I am. I mean, they come from me. I don't come from them."

            Fa Shen opened her mouth, but paused to think before speaking. Something Ranma-chan had said, while explaining her transition from male persona to female persona, came to mind. "Let me see if I get this. You told the others that Ranma was who you were as a man, and Ranko was who you were as a woman. So, are you talking about who you are as a cursed woman?"

            "Uh, maybe. It's more like, I just realized who I am in spite of everything. Who I am underneath it all," Ranma-chan smiled, relieved to finally make her point. Now that she had put that much in words, she realized a better way to say it, "I am the one who understands me, even if I can't explain myself."

            Fa Shen digested that. "You know, if you really pushed me to define myself, that's exactly what I might say. I don't see how you could be a different person than me, if that's the definition of who you are."

            "I don't think so. If I understand what it means to be me, I don't think I could understand things the same way you do. If I understood you, I'd be you. I'd understand my responsibilities as you, and my responsibilities as me would be neglected. Man, that's confusing!" Ranma-chan stood up and began to pace around in thought. "This is why I hate thinking about things. You start trying to figure out what it all means and you just get sucked in deeper and deeper until nothing is what it seems to be anymore."

            "Maybe you should stop when you reach something useful. It looked like you figured something out there, and it sort of does make sense," Fa Shen got to her feet and followed Ranma-chan out onto the grass. "There is a point where you and I are the same person. However we got to THIS point, we both have had our lives interrupted. Even if we have to do the same thing right now, we each have different paths to follow if we can survive this."

            "Yeah," Ranma-chan kicked a rock into the pond. A thought suddenly hit her and the whipped around to stare at Fa Shen in excitement. "That's it!"

            "You sure get excited when you come up with ideas," she quipped.

            "Hey!" Ranma-chan scowled. Fa Shen grinned at her, gesturing for her to share her newest revelation. Ranma-chan nodded and composed herself, "We were tryin' to figure out why I couldn't wake up, but now it makes perfect sense. We got here by fighting over which one of us we were. Until then, we were sort of locked together. Now that we recognize each other, we're both tryin' to be ourselves, and neither of us wants the other to give up bein' herself, right?"

            Fa Shen nodded, seeing how they had reached a deadlock by choosing not to fight for dominance. "Okay, so, what did you figure out?"

            "We have to do it together!" Ranma-chan grinned, it was so obvious.

            "Uh, together? Wake up together?" Fa Shen quirked an eyebrow. 

            "Yes! It's the only way we can keep our truce."

Ranma and Akane ate their dinner in silence. The meal had arrived while the two of them were brooding over the future. Neither had really dismissed the notion of joining forces to delay the wedding, but given the interest Akane's rivals showed in Ranma-chan they needed to consider other ways to frustrate their fathers. Akane had related Ukyo's opinion on Ranma-chan's prospects of regaining manhood through marriage to her, and it need not be said that Shampoo felt the same. This had caused Ranma to go quiet in private contemplation of whether or not they had any right to interfere with the two girls' interest in Ranma-chan. They both felt that any circumstances that allowed Ranma-chan retain some part of her former existence, that did not directly conflict with "Ranma's" family obligations, should be encouraged. Her survival might well depend on having something like that to hold on to. Otherwise, there was every chance that Ranma-chan might see no reason not to hand her existence over to Fa Shen.

            Ranma, eating slowly because of his distraction, or at a pace normal for any other human being, put down his knife and fork and sighed. Akane looked up in concerned curiosity. Ranma gazed at her thoughtfully for several moments and decided to voice his thoughts as her expression changed to one of annoyance. "I was just thinking of Ranma-chan's other problem. Fa Shen. That whole thing, it's like… no, she WAS another person, not just memories," Ranma pointed out. "I have this really bad feeling about that. I think Ranma-chan's in a lot more danger than just dying or losing her identity."

            "I've been trying not to think about that," Akane's face immediately fell. 

            "Yeah, well, you're not going to like this then," Ranma frowned. Akane watched him push his unfinished meal away from himself, carelessly tossing his linen napkin over his plate as if to hide an unappetizing sight. That, more than anything, told her what he had to say next was definitely not going to be good. She picked at her food for a moment, avoiding his eyes, but found herself dismissing her meal as well. It was an excellent meal, but her nervous stomach was unable to appreciate it. When she finally met his eyes, he bit his lip. "I have this feeling that she's different from my neko side. I mean, that's a totally different state of mind, but when I'm a c-c-cat I'm still me, y'know?"

            Akane blinked, but otherwise gave no reaction. She suddenly knew where this was going. "You don't think Fa Shen's the same? I mean, you don't think Ranma-chan was just out of her mind?"

            "I was thinkin' about it when I was comin' back to meet you after that fight with Kodachi. The old mummy said I got her memories 'cuz part of her soul was trapped in the spring, her ghost. Well, if people only get cursed with her exact form because her ghost tried to possess 'em, doesn't it kinda make sense than that she actually did possess me? It would explain why I had enough ki for two people," he pointed out miserably. 

            "I didn't think of that. So, you think that was the real Fa Shen that attacked you," Akane concluded, leaning back and crossing her arms. 

            "Yeah," Ranma nodded. 

            "We've seen enough real ghosts, and similar things, I can't say it isn't possible, but," Akane frowned. She shook her head, "The only way that could make things worse is if she… Wait, why do I think you're worried about more than her trying to possess Ranma-chan?"

            "Oh, that would be a problem with any ghost, but because she was murdered I'd have to feel sorry for her. I mean, her life was not finished. It was taken away. Same thing is happening to Ranma-chan, so she'd really feel for her," Ranma elaborated. Akane stiffened in growing comprehension. "I'm worried that, if there's no chance for Ranma-chan to get her life back, it'll make her wanna give Fa Shen what she can't have for herself."

            "You don't think she'd really sacrifice herself for a dead girl!?"

            "Why not? I know I would, if I could," Ranma shrugged. 

            "Why? That's insane!"

            "No it isn't. As a martial artist, I am always willing to exchange my life to save someone else's."

            "But she's already dead!"

            "No. I don't think so. 'S more like she hovering on the brink of death," Ranma argued stubbornly. "Her body died, but her spirit is still alive, like that weirdo, Eggroll. Her ki isn't cold like a real ghost's."

            "What?"

            "Don'cha remember that weird ghost that wanted Happosai to steal her underwear?" Akane wrinkled her nose in disgust over being reminded, but nodded in confusion. "Yeah, well, even when she was calm, her ki was colder than my 'Soul of Ice' but when she got upset, it got so cold it felt hot. The ki she put into those paper panty illusions was literally sucking the life outta the old fart!" Ranma crossed his arms in contempt at the way Happosai had acted.

            "So, you think Fa Shen's alive because her ki is warm?"

            "Yep," he smiled. He gestured for silence as someone approached their table. The waiter had noticed that they had both stopped eating and shoved their plates aside. He inquired if they were interested in a dessert, but Ranma grunted and shook his head, so Akane decided not to order anything. They had done enough to satisfy her father's expectations of a "real" date, and she felt no inclination to drag it out. She waited patiently as the table was cleared and Ranma settled the bill. 

            Once they were outside, Akane turned to him, "So, now what should we do?"

            Ranma shrugged, "I know this wasn't much of a date. I was plannin' on doin' something after dinner, but I really oughta swing by the dojo and get some things if I'm gonna sleep somewhere else tonight."

            "Before your mom gets back with Ranko?"

            "Yeah."

            "Where are you and Ranma-chan going to sleep tonight?"

            Ranma noticed the forced nonchalance and chuckled. They both knew that Dr. Tofu did not have room for the pair to sleep in his tiny apartment over the clinic, and that Shampoo or Ukyo would fall over themselves offering a place to sleep—most likely in their own beds, since they had as little room as Tofu to spare. "Actually, I was thinkin' me and Ranma-chan would shack up in an empty lot somewhere. Pops will sleep as a panda, like usual, so I can snag the tent for us," he explained, to Akane's relief. 

            "That sounds okay, after you're done getting your camping gear you can go pick up Ranma-chan from the clinic," Akane nodded, approving the plan. With this understanding, the two fell into step and began the walk back to the dojo. By the end of the first block, they were quietly holding hands and trying to pretend it was no big deal. 

It was hard to decide if things had improved much since she nearly shocked poor Ryouga to death. Ranko had spent the rest of the meal trying to figure out if he was so pale from blood loss, from that spectacular nose bleed, or if he was simply terrified that the topic would come up again. While she lured him into conversation by bringing up and discussing some of their past exploits, she was surprised to find that she was insanely tempted to return to the question of what the pair of them might do with the contents of her purse. If she had any idea what effect the glow her shameful thoughts brought to her face had on Ryouga, she might have realized how easy it would be to lead the lost boy down that path of experimentation. Fortunately, she was too busy wondering at herself. She had always been a very physical and sensual person. It came from how she grew up, a great deal closer to nature than most and possessing far more developed senses. In fact, when it had been vital to preserve her manhood, she had convinced herself that the torture she suffered every time she had bathed was simply an example of how hyper sensitive she was. It was her habit to wash and rinse in cold water before soaking in a furo or onsen. She had gotten used to bathing in cold water within the first week she was cursed, and perhaps that had something to do with why she was only careful to bathe in hot water at public baths or in the company of Mousse or Ryouga. 

            She looked down, outwardly listening to Ryouga describing one of his long journeys, and swallowed hard. It was too easy to summon up images of his naked body. Even as a boy she had admired the simple animal beauty of his form, but only as a girl could she admit that it made an impression on her. With a stifled moan if anguish she reminded herself not to retreat behind her own masculinity. When she tried that to shake off the feelings prompted by her mother's demonstration, she had been horrified to discover that the memory of her former body gave her an overwhelming appreciation for the male form that her current wiring and hormones transformed into pure, gut wrenching lust. No, Ranko was not particularly feminine, but she was certainly female through and through. She should have known it would happen, since she had already experienced the reverse as Ranma. 

            She had been a sixteen year old boy when she was cursed, and he had developed quite normally. Without a clue, he had nevertheless developed a fascination with and appreciation for the female form. While he guarded himself from the distractions girls represented to his training, he certainly had developed a desire for girls which accounted for the actual trauma of his transformation. It did not make sense at the time, and he had been terrified that it was some aspect of the curse, trying to make him accept it, but the simple fact was that he had been attracted to his cursed form. The feelings he had felt toward girls, which his father had assured him were normal, just a way for him to know how much he liked them, were strongly aroused by his curse. He was quite positive he hated his curse, but at the same time his feelings were telling him he liked it more than he liked other girls!

            Fortunately, those feelings had gradually changed to something he was familiar with in his normal form, an unconscious appreciation for how his body was built and how it worked. As much as he hated it, he could not deny his curse had given him an excellent new body with different strengths and weaknesses, and more importantly, a new challenge to his martial arts skills. 

            Ironically, the shift in perspective had totally demystified girls in his eyes. To his shock, the next time he encountered girls, they had not aroused any special interest. No more than he'd ever felt towards other boys. As had been the case with boys, there were certain situations that provoked strange responses similar to attraction, being touched in certain places or in certain ways that tempted him to lower his guard. His view of people's attractiveness shifted to other things, such as hygiene, health, fitness, personality. Perhaps that was why Shampoo had seemed ugly to him until she fell for his boy side.

            Of course, there had been something else that had helped change the way he looked at things, from the beginning. His first bath as a girl had, unintentionally, become the longest bath of his life. The first time he had been given an opportunity to satisfy his curiosity about girls' bodies, his hands had been the only practical means to explore with. Like any boy his age, he was already familiar with the electrifying grip of pleasure, so when it bit him then, it had been a thankfully familiar experience. After all, with the loss of the part of him he associated with those wonderful sensations, he had assumed he had lost the capacity for such feeling altogether. It had been a relief to learn that something so profound had not been lost. Unfortunately, the mechanics of pleasure were different in this new form, radically so. By the time he exhausted the gripping need, there was nothing he did not know about his new anatomy. Worse, his new form seemed to have a greater capacity for pleasure, since he had refused to relent until he reached the point where his girl body climaxed in ejaculation. As a boy, he would have been spent at the first peak, but as a girl it had taken a virtual mountain range to erupt. 

            The worst of all, his father had come running to his disturbing cries and stood there in absolute shock witnessing it all. Ranma had not been too disturbed, since the same had happened to the boy at a younger age, and his father had taken him aside to assure him that what he was doing was as natural as eating and excreting, and like the latter to be done in privacy and only to relieve the pressure. So, it was a shock to see his father break down and decry his shame for what his son had done. It had been incomprehensible. In spite of his initial discomfort, Genma had permitted no complaint against pissing or shitting as a girl, saying that hot water was a luxury during a training mission and would not be provided to accommodate his insecurities over his new form. When he calmed down, Genma finally took Ranma aside and explained that his new form was not "designed" to relieve his "manly" pressure, as evidenced by the difficulty Ranma had obviously had with it. Attempting to do so was unnatural and he was forbidden to do so again. 

            Ranma had tried to comply with the command, but it was impossible to bathe without arousing that need. Fortunately, it was only necessary to peak once to fulfill that need. It was enough to break the spell of pleasure, and in time he learned how to avoid getting aroused in either form. Now, it struck her as ironic. She had continued to "clean the pipes" to relieve "manly" pressure, but used her female form to release her tensions because it was less messy. Because her father insisted that "girls did not do that" she had never had any compunctions about what she was doing. In fact, she was positive that she was reinforcing her manhood by doing such a "manly" thing even in her female form. She found herself giggling, as she thought back over the past few days. Thanks to Copy-chan, who had gone into explicit detail on the topic of making love with Hiroshi and Daisuke, Ranko now knew that the things she had feared the curse might tempt her with, the things Hiroshi and Daisuke had hinted Ranma might do which "only girls could do", were in fact things she had done all along. Maybe Ranma would have lost that fear if he had taken their comments more seriously. She now knew that she had dismissed outright sexual innuendo as absurd. The way boys talked about sex acts, they all sounded like ways to piss someone off. Sticking this in that, sucking on those, getting together naked, it all sounded like perverse ways to offend and humiliate people, and therefore were not to be taken seriously. 

            There had been too much her father had kept her ignorant of. Whenever she did get some clue, it was always out of context and she had refused to admit her ignorance. The worst had been her period. Calculating back, she now assumed her first period had gone unnoticed while she was swimming home from China. The cramps had come the morning she and her father left, and Genma had blamed it on the fish they had eaten for dinner, forcing her to quit griping and start swimming. In short time, she was too miserable from swimming in the cold water to worry about cramps, and the two or three days it took them to reach Japan was enough to leave her with no trace of bleeding. No, she had not confronted that insanity until she had been living at the dojo for a month. Naturally, she had been fighting recently, so she had faced the discovery of blood in her boxers with understandable dread. The cramps added to the assumption that something inside her was ruptured, but pain was never enough to keep her down. It never occurred to her to speak to Kasumi, she just flew straight to see Dr. Tofu. 

            The doctor had calmed her panic, and examined her at once. After a number of embarrassing questions she had not understood, except to say that no one had ever touched her down there, and she could not imagine anyone even wanting to, he stifled an embarrassed laugh, and tried to explain that there was nothing to be worried about. Ranma had been livid. She recounted a recent battle where she had taken a hard blow to the abdomen. There was obviously something very wrong with her, she felt like something was shredded inside of her. Then, after explaining that this was not his area of expertise, the doctor had explained she was having her period. Tofu had carefully explained the female reproductive cycle, bringing out a book to illustrate that a girl's body was different on the inside and why. The shock of learning that she was capable of becoming pregnant overwhelmed most of the lesson, especially an abbreviated explanation of sex. She got away with, have sex, get pregnant, and some carefully memorized instructions for purchasing certain items to deal with the immediate problem. If she had paid any attention to the discussion on sex, nothing in the world would have gotten her to select and use tampons. Because pads required panties, she did not give them a second thought. Thus, until recently, tampons were the only thing she knew of that had any business going in "there". 

            Ranko looked up and smiled at Ryouga. As hard as it was to believe, studying him as feelings of love and lust churned along with all of these thoughts, she could not deny she had found a much better use for that portion of her anatomy. Ranma-chan had been right, unfortunately she had given Ranko the idea that it would be difficult. She did not have to become a girl, she only had to admit that she already was one. Blinking, she realized that Ranma-chan had not misled her. She had put it exactly right. All she had needed to do was understand. 

            Ryouga had rambled on almost desperately, aware that there was something worlds apart from his tales of wandering going on in her mind. He could see it in the mercurial shifts of her expression, as she blushed and occasionally giggled to herself at inopportune moments. It did not really bother him that she was only half listening to him, because when she looked at him his heart did a back flip or tried to burst out of his chest. The glimmer of love or passion or humor burned in her eyes, adding to the radiant glow of her face, made her even more beautiful. Realizing that he had lost his train of thought, he gulped and glanced around, "I think every guy in the room is staring at you!"

            She blushed a little darker, but her smile grew into a grin, "The only one I want to look back at is you."

            Ryouga pulled at his collar, expecting a cloud of steam to emerge. "Ah," he laughed nervously, "Are you sure that's just water you're drinking?"

            She frowned a little, cutely, and tipped her glass to look inside, "I actually tried to get something stronger, but Mom apparently told the waiter I'm under age. Sure feels like I'm three sheets to the wind. I guess I'm just drunk on you!" she looked up with another radiant smile.

            Ryouga opened and shut his mouth a few times, striving for words. 

            Seeing the poor boy was about to blow a gasket again, she sighed. "I didn't expect it to happen so fast. I keep thinking there's something to figure out, Ryouga, but the truth is, I have all these feelings inside me and all I needed to do was stop pretending they weren't real. Now that I have," she paused as Ryouga stiffened in realization and leaned forward. She collected herself, "Everything I felt for you with the koi rod, I am feeling now, and then some. I've been a girl for a lot longer than I realized, and I was so messed up 'cuz I didn't dare look for what I wanted. For the first time I understand Ukyo and Shampoo, how they felt about me, 'cuz… I feel that way with you."

            "Ranko?" he whispered in shock and suppressed hope. 

            "Ryouga…" she looked down. She firmed her resolve and looked up, "I love you. I don't understand how, or why… I mean… I've always liked you, even when you're being a total ass, even when you're tryin' to kill me, I respect you, I am impressed by how strong you are, how good you are." Ryouga was literally gaping at her in disbelief. "I mean, there are times I really hate you, like all that crap with P-Chan and Akane, and blaming me for everything that goes wrong in your life. But the fact is, I'm not much better'n you when it comes to dealing with people. All I really know is the Art, and… let's face it, I wouldn't be as good as I am now without you. I wish you didn't hate me so much, 'cuz, without that you seem to be a pretty decent guy."

            Ryouga was clearly having a hard time with this mixed, but honest appraisal. He wanted to retort, wanted to refute all the bad things she had said about him. Unfortunately, though he was hearing Ranma, he was seeing Ranko, the complete person Copy-chan could have been, and instead denying the first accusation, he found himself refuting the last, "I don't hate you!" Suddenly, as he heard his own words, he calmed down. His mind cleared and he continued, from the bottom of the list, "I know I would not be as good as I am if it were not for you. I don't really know much about the Art, I just picked up things as I went. I only started fighting to make people stop laughing at me because of my problems. I don't understand people, Ranma… Ranko… Hell, I certainly don't understand you. Akane's the first person who ever made me feel happy. She's a nice person, and she's always been nice to me, standing up for me, telling me I'm a good person. I never wanted to be her P-Chan. I hate that as much as you do, but, I'm usually pretty helpless when she gets me in that form." He took a deep breath, seeing that she was really listening to him, trying to hear him out. 

            Taking a careful drink from his glass, he collected his thoughts. "Akane's the only good thing about my curse, Ranm- Ranko. I'm sorry, I always figured I'd have this conversation with Ranma, if I could ever calm down enough to just… talk." She nodded silently. "I'm not going to explain what it's like to be P-Chan, or how that effects my feelings, but just believe me, when I am in that form, it's not easy to walk away from her. When I get back to normal, I can't deal with… I try to focus on other problems. Like Ranma."

            "Why do you hate m- Ranma so much?"

            "Oh, you don't have to make a distinction there. And the problem isn't that I hate you. And I am talking to you, Ranma. It's always been you, it's always been that I liked you. Akane was the first person to make me feel happy, but you were the first person to be nice to me, to treat me with respect." Ryouga hung his head. "Even though we fought every day, and even though you made fun of my sense of direction, you still were there every day making sure I didn't get lost. You made me feel like someone cared if I was around, actually wanted me to be around. You were my only friend, and…" He took a deep breath and sighed. "I knew you were leaving soon, and I knew that the thing you cared the most about was the Art, and… I hoped if I could earn your respect, I could deal with you leaving. I tried so hard to get to that last fight," he hunched forward and tears started to form. "I was so excited when I started I got completely lost, and the harder I tried to find the way back the more lost I got, but the whole time I was thinking, 'Ranma understands, he won't give up on me. He'll be there, no matter what.' But when I finally arrived, you were gone. I thought, maybe I can still catch up to you, everyone said you'd only been gone a day. As I followed, searching for you, I kept replaying everything over and over in my mind, and I began to fear that the whole time you were mocking me. That you were just pretending to be nice so you could keep me around to make fun of. The idea that you didn't respect me enough to wait as long as it took grew and grew until I thought you never had any respect for me at all, and for betraying my friendship, I swore I'd teach you a lesson. I'd get some respect from you if I had to break every bone in your body."

            Ranko stood up and came around to his side. "Ryouga, I had no idea."

            Ryouga relaxed, grateful for being able to hold back the tears that wanted to spill forth. Blinking until his vision was clear, he straightened and looked at her, standing there looking ashamed and helpless. "If I had found you before Jusenkyo, I might have stopped after one fight. I might have said something, asked you if you were deliberately making fun of me, but then I got that curse, and things just got worse and worse, and I forgot the real reason I was after you in the first place. I mean, to start with I was jealous of your curse. Who cares that you turned into a girl, you were at least human. But I was so hung up on the advantages I never considered the disadvantages. In fact, I was thrilled that it seemed to bother you so much, since it allowed me to mock you the way I thought you were mocking me. I say thought, because after what you said about pork tonight, I realized that you just never think before opening your mouth, do you?"

            Ranko shook her head in shame. 

            "Now I know that it's my own damn fault you hate me. All the crap I did since coming to Nerima, trying to kill you, trying to steal Akane away from you, blaming you for everything and never once giving you a chance to explain, or trying to figure you out. Every time you got in my way, I got more angry at you, but even when you were using your curse to mess with my head, you were just trying to keep me from getting closer to Akane, and you probably only did that because of me using my curse to take advantage of her," he continued, wincing as she nodded with a grim face. He sighed, there were hard feelings there, for all the above reasons, but she was listening to him. He shook his head. "Honestly, just hearing you say you liked me, that you respected me, even when we were fighting, is more than I ever expected. How can you possibly love me?"

            Ranko crouched next to his chair and studied his face. He had touched on a lot of her uncertainties, the things that made her question the sanity of her feelings. She shrugged, "I already told you, I don't get it myself. Maybe it's 'cuz I'm a girl. Maybe it's 'cuz the only real man I know well enough to measure others against is my father, and compared to him you're a knight in shining armor. Maybe because whenever you've had a perfect opportunity to take me out for good, you've shown mercy. I do know one thing, though."

            Her eyes stared into his, holding his attention. "What?"

            She slipped something into his hand, and curled his fingers closed over it. With her hand resting on his, she leaned forward, "I'm willing to finish what she started." While he was distracted, trying to figure out what she was referring to, and rubbing his fingers over the object in his hand, she flowed forward, her arms going around his neck as her lips pressed against his. His attention now pulled in three directions, he absently slipped his arms around her shoulders and let himself marvel at the warmth and silkiness of her mouth against his. His fingers played over the foil packet, making out a round shape inside like a large rubber gasket. At about the same time, his mind flashed on a spectacularly mind blowing moment in his life. _Leaning very close, her nose almost touching his, she smiled and purred, "Do you wanna make love with me?"_

            As his body began to stiffen, Ranko casually slipped one hand down between his legs and grabbed what she found there, hoping to give his body a clue where to send the blood instead of his nose. Between that suggestion, and the kiss, Ryouga suddenly found himself oddly light headed. With the last of his mental resources, he pulled back, fighting the spinning of the room to focus his eyes on Ranko and very eloquently said the most intelligent thing he could. Alas, the previous unspoken words were, "What the hell is this?" and the appropriate answer, spoken in a room filling declaration, was, "Condom!" With this unbridled declaration of his love, he promptly keeled over backwards, dragging Ranko along to the ground with him. 


	27. The Art of Dating, Step Three: Temptatio...

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Twenty-Seven: The Art of Dating, Step Three: Temptation

As the couple came closer and closer to the Tendo Dojo, Ranma became gradually more agitated. Even though preoccupied by other, private thoughts, Akane could sense the growing tension in the boy beside her, as if it was passing through his hand into her. When it first became noticeable, she had asked him what was wrong, but he had shook his head and muttered that he had no idea. They had automatically begun to scan the darkness beyond the street lights searching for some indication of attack, but neither had a sharp sense of danger. It was more like a creeping dread, and it did not take long to realize that it had something to do with what they faced when they got home. Considering their situation, it was not hard to guess what they could expect, coming home from a date together. With their fathers, it was reasonable to expect to walk into a wedding ceremony. Ranma frowned in incipient anger. That would absolutely ruin what had been the nicest date he had ever been on with Akane. After brooding on it for several blocks, he made a decision. 

            Akane turned to look at him in curiosity as he pulled them both to a halt. She had caught the flash of anger, but as she faced him there was only a serious look, a look he might go into battle with, but it quickly faded into something more uncertain. "What is it, Ranma?"

            "Akane," he began, then took a deep breath. "I've got a bad feeling about going home. Something is going to happen to completely ruin our night." The hard look of intent came back, with an undertone of anger, "I am sick and tired of everything we do ending on a bad note."

            "Well, if you don't want to come home, I guess I could grab your gear and bring it over to Dr. Tofu's for you," she offered, in puzzled concern. It bothered her that he seemed ready to ditch her, but knew any difficulty with the fathers would be diminished if he did not return with her. 

            "No, that's not it," he almost growled. "Akane, I usually try to do the right thing, but sometimes I can't figure out what that is. For once, it's different, 'cuz I do know the proper way to end a date. The problem is, I don't want it to be taken for somethin' it's not."

            Akane was suddenly feeling lost. The proper way to end a date? Was he…? "Ranma? What… are you saying you want to kiss me?"

            Ranma studied her carefully. The truth was, he did, but he did not know how to admit that. Not when he was still uncertain how she might take it. He swallowed and focused on her eyes, "It would be the right thing to do, I mean, if this is supposed to be a real date. But… Do you want me to?"

            Akane stared back at him, seeing the uncertainty, the anticipation, the dread of how she might respond. They had reached this point before, and made the mistake of not making sure they had any privacy. If they got any closer to home, they certainly would not, but here, now, there were no witnesses. If anything, that was what convinced her he was serious. She found herself clutching his hand and trying to keep her breathing slow and even. Did she? Unable to say anything, she allowed herself to nod the tiniest bit. 

            Ranma felt his heart begin to race as he caught the faint acknowledgement. His mouth suddenly feeling dry, he glanced away, letting his face fall into shadow and licked his lips. From the corner of his eye, he saw her do the same. It almost made him laugh. For once, he envied Copy-kun and his fearless lust. With almost a hiccup of surprise, he realized that was a part of him now, and to his chagrin, the pale copy of himself had even recorded the procedure in his mind as a martial arts technique! What could be simpler for the Great Ranma Saotome than to execute such a simple technique? Step One: Turn toward your partner, look at her and let what you think and feel about her to show on your face. 

            Akane found his attention on her again and looked up. She almost gasped in surprise at his expression. She did not know what to make of it, there was humor and fear underlying protective concern and wonder filled with hunger and passion, and it was all beaming down on her. Her guard slipped and Ranma watched as surprise, curiosity, awe and a touch of burning fever filled her gaze. Suddenly, Step Two seemed easy. Tell her what you think. "You really are cute when you smile, and when you're asleep. It's hard to see that when we're fighting. I like seeing you laughing and happy more. I wish we could be friends instead of fiancées, so I could tell you I like you without everyone making a big fuss." He smiled, "You know, you're the only fiancée I think can understand how I feel about all these engagements. You're the only one who feels the same way. I guess that's why we get along so well."

            Akane almost choked, "I'm not sure I'd call what we do, getting along!"

            Ranma chuckled, "Come on, Akane. I'm not used to being in one place for so long, and I'm perfectly happy living on the road. Do you really think I haveta stick around people I don't like living with? I don't really understand why I make people so angry, 'cuz I know I'm not as bad as Pops. You must like me a little, 'cuz you never seem to stay mad at me for long. I'd say that means we get along pretty good."

            "Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds?" 

            Ranma shrugged. Not sure if Step Two was going entirely right, but seeing Akane was not actually mad at the moment, he proceeded to the next step. He put his arms around her, slowly and gently, waiting to see how she would react. To his surprise, she slipped easily into his arms, looking up at him with her hands placed gently on his chest in curious anticipation. He had one part of Step Two left to do, and he steeled his nerve as he found a way to say, "This is going to sound crazy too, then. Akane." He looked deep into her eyes, searching, watching and waiting to see how she reacted to the rest, "If I was absolutely sure what it meant, I'd say I love you."

            Akane felt herself struggling for air, even though his gentle embrace in no way actually impaired her breathing. Those words were like a fist in her gut, but the impact was disturbingly pleasant. She was well aware of the qualifications in his statement. He more than liked her. "You… you mean, you're not sure if what you feel is love?"

            Ranma shook his head. "It's nothing like what those love spells have made me feel, and I'm not sure that's what real love would feel like. Those feelings would have made me kiss you already, but what I feel… I want to kiss you, but I won't if you don't want to kiss me."

            Akane reflected for a moment, and the thing that came to mind was that part of what he felt for her was… Her eyes widened. Respect. Rather than try to speak, she closed her eyes, leaned carefully forward and gently touched her lips to his. It was all the encouragement he needed. In moments, she was holding on to him as much as he was holding her, tentatively, hopefully, gratefully. For the first time since the engagement was thrust on them, some small corner in each of their minds wondered if it was really such a bad idea. 

            Sanity returned and they both backed away. They met each other's eyes, flushed with excitement and chagrin, then looked away at the same time. The moment had been wonderful, but they recognized it as more of a declaration of peace between them than a promise of things to come. For once, they were able to end things on a good note. Whatever happened next would be unable to taint what had just passed. One step forward. No steps back. It was enough for both of them. So, they resumed walking home, preparing to face whatever disaster was certainly waiting for them. 

            Of course, they were totally unprepared for the scene awaiting them as they entered the dojo. The first alarm bell was being greeted by Dr. Tofu instead of Kasumi. One look at his severe, concerned face assured them that their recent date was the last thing on anyone's mind in the Tendo Home. He approached with the demeanor of every doctor faced with the burden of delivering bad news to a patient's family in the waiting room. 

            "Ranma. Akane," Tofu greeted them succinctly. 

            "Dr. Tofu?" they both gulped. 

            "Why don't the two of you come into the Tea Room and sit down. I have something to tell you, and it will take a bit of explaining. I must insist you hear me out before attempting anything rash."

            "What's wrong? Is it Ranma-chan!? Did something happen to her!?"

            "Please, come sit down. I'll tell you everything we know," he urged them, putting a hand on their shoulders and firmly steering them in to where Genma and Soun were pacing around the table. They paused and offered nods in greeting, but remained strangely silent and grim. The tension in the young couple shot up to agonizing levels and they turned as one to Tofu and pleaded.

            "Please, Dr. Tofu, where is Ranma-chan?"

            "Doc, at least tell me she's still alive!?"

            "Ranma-chan is still alive, Ranma," he offered a faint smile. "However, something has happened to her and she is in some danger. That is why it is essential you listen to me so you do not inadvertently do something to harm her." The fact that he did not respond to Akane's question made it clear that their ignorance was a threat to her, if they were to rush to her side. The two sat down and listened carefully as Dr. Tofu explained what had happened to Ranma-chan. After making sure they understood his concern about triggering her curse, he led them upstairs to where she was laid out in the guest room. Since Mousse's actions and intentions had been also explained, the pair leveled withering glances on the master of hidden weapons when they spotted him hovering behind Shampoo and Ukyo. However, since he was in the middle of a discussion with Cologne, they ignored him and joined Kasumi and Nabiki on the other side of Ranma-chan and looked down on her with concerned faces. A moment later, Mousse stood up and left the room. 

            "I've sent Mousse to retrieve some books containing information related to the Mirror of Broken Souls and the cursed man who survived its influence," Cologne announced to the doctor, loud enough for everyone else to hear. Tofu nodded, stiffly from the door. He had not entered, and tried very hard not to glance at Kasumi. 

            "Has there been any other change in her condition?" he asked.

            Cologne shook her head. "No. The symptoms of shock all cleared up earlier, but she remains in a deep trance. She is bleeding ki, but not at a dangerous rate. I suspect that the barriers she erected today have been relaxed a bit, but she is not as naked as she was this morning."

            Ranma cleared his throat, "Is there anyway I can give her more ki? Would that possibly help? I mean, right now she's got about two thirds of a normal person's ki. The missing third might be keeping her in a healing trance."

            "I considered that, but you remember what I said would happen to the reflections if she gained a full measure?" Cologne looked at him sternly. "It would take half your remaining ki to bring her up to that level, which would cut you and Ranko off leaving you with barely a third of the energy you need to survive, Ranma." She sighed, "No, there's a steady flow at present. She has more than enough ki to wake up if there is nothing else preventing her."

            "Is there any way to tell if Fa Shen might be winning the battle for dominance?"

            "I can only tell that there is currently no struggle of wills going on. I could not guess which one might have triumphed, if indeed they simply did not stop fighting altogether. I would suspect the latter, since the victor would almost certainly rise to consciousness," Cologne returned to the head of Ranma-chan's futon and looked down on her thoughtfully. 

            "You mean, they called a truce?" Akane looked at her. 

            "They would certainly have a lot to discuss if the circumstances allowed for it," Cologne offered, sitting down and patting the sleeping girl's head gently. "In the meantime, there are some things you should be warned of as well," the matriarch focused on Ranma meaningfully. When she had his attention, she proceeded to explain the concerns that had come up regarding Fa Shen's presence in the reflections. Shampoo and Ukyo cut in from time to time to emphasize their own concerns as well. An occasional probing question from Nabiki ensured that the matter was covered in sufficient detail. Ranma confided his own thoughts on the topic, stemming from his initial confrontation with Fa Shen, and the things he had pondered during his date with Akane. 

            "I wish there was some way to know if I am right," Ranma concluded, after expressing his concerns about what would happen if Fa Shen was the source of the additional ki, and the state of living death she or Ranma-chan might have to endure depending on which one was conscious. "But, if I am, Ranko and I wouldn't have the same problem. We're both on the edge of this, while Ranma-chan and Fa Shen are tied together in the middle."

            "So, another no win situation for Ran-chan," Ukyo commented bitterly. 

            "I hope not, Ucchan," Ranma running his hands through his hair in frustration. He crossed his arms and looked between her and Shampoo. "It's pretty freaky that you two fighting over Ranma-chan woke Fa Shen up, when your engagements might be the one thing that would keep Ranma-chan from just handing everything over to Fa Shen." 

            Ukyo and Shampoo looked at him in surprise. 

            "I know she gave up the engagements along with being me, but there's no way I can honor all three engagements," he pointed out. "Also, since the two of us are the only ones who can be Ranma, unless Ranko decides to go back to Jusenkyo, being split like this isn't a perfect solution. I'm not interested in getting' married any more than ever, but, I would be okay with splitting up the engagements if that let her go back to bein' normal."

            "Shampoo like idea, is best Shampoo married to cursed Ranma."

            "I'm not gonna let you just take Ran-chan," Ukyo glared. 

            "Shampoo hear blah blah blah know this tune by heart. Time Spatula Girl learn new song," Shampoo sniffed in disdain. 

            "Right now, she's not engaged to anyone," Ranma growled. 

            "It was just a suggestion," Akane pointed out.

            "Right. If you fight over her, she might just decide it's not worth the trouble to be me again!"

            "If become Fa Shen, Shampoo have to claim you Airen and kill Ranko. Shampoo no want have to do that," she retorted in a hurt tone.

            "You don't want him for a husband?" Akane pointed at Ranma.

            "Stupid Kitchen Destroyer! Is good husband! No want kill Ranko!"

            "Oh. Well. Who would?" Akane subsided. 

            "I wish there was some way to separate her and Fa Shen."

            "There might be," Cologne spoke up thoughtfully. "If we can fix the three of you, make you all whole, Son-In Law."

            "What?" everyone else chorused. 

            "Don't worry, I'll tell you all, when I have it figured out," she promised.

            Everyone keeled over backwards. 

            Ranma slowly pulled himself back upright, then paused as an idea came to him. "The mirror," he said to himself aloud. Everyone else popped to their knees and stared at him. 

            "What?"

            "What was that, Son-In-Law?"

            "I'm not your Son-In-Law," he narrowed his eyes at her, and waved everyone off for a moment to think. Nodding his head, he looked up. "It would depend on if Ranko and Ranma-chan agreed to it, but I think we could use the mirror to separate Fa Shen from the rest of us."

            "I don't see how, given what I know of the mirror," Cologne criticized.

            "That's because you've never been through it."

            "Well then, enlighten us."

            Ranma nodded and jumped to his feet. As he paced back and forth, he spelled out his idea. "The way I remember it, the mirror feels like a doorway from my mind. I mean, if you've ever stared into a mirror, you can see your reflection is thinking the same thing you are. You're really on one side of the glass, but you completely control the person inside the mirror." That made several of his audience boggle. "Never mind. Try it and you might get the idea," he shuddered, remembering a time when he had studied his alternate form in the mirror and been spooked by the perception of his thoughts and feelings possessing her. "Anyway, I told Akane that when I was coming out of the mirror, I expected to still be cursed Ranma even though I was walking out all-guy. It was all in my mind until I crossed over. If I had not made the decision to come out as a guy, the reflection would have stayed normal."

            "You mean there was something different from when Ranko was trapped in the mirror?"

            "Yeah, because the curse was triggered, Copy-kun was put back in my head, but I never triggered the curse while Copy-chan was in the mirror, so she stayed in the mirror until I let her out," Ranma turned and looked down at his original self. "I didn't have to bring back my guy side," he shook his head. "It's done now, and the reasons are the same. However, it would be easier for Ranma-chan and Ranko to be the same person again. Ranma-chan would have a shot at being part of her family as Ranko, and Ranko would still be able to be male when she wanted with the curse."

            "If they went back to the mirror," Cologne was catching on, "Ranko could go in, Ranma-chan could revert to male form, making them one mind again, then go back to female form and let Fa Shen take that body and come out of the mirror."

            "Exactly," Ranma nodded with conviction. 

            "That would not completely fix the bleeding problem, but it would certainly clear up the mess with Fa Shen," Cologne noted with satisfaction. She returned her hand to Ranma-chan's head, smiled and gently brushed her bangs out of her face. "Well, all we need is for you to wake up, hopefully before your mother gets back, and make another trip out to that mansion." 

Nodoka returned to the restaurant where Ranko and Ryouga were eating well before the two were finished with their desserts. On the train, she had brooded over the girl's gentle refusal of her offer to adopt her, but at the same time recognized that there were advantages to assuming the role of mentor instead of a motherly role. For one thing, it gave her a great deal of liberty in addressing the girl's sexuality and education. As a mother, it would have been difficult to be frank and honest about the chemistry she sensed between her young charges, but as a woman and teacher, she could take an active hand in initiating the young girl in the mysteries of womanhood. From their conversation in the ladies room, that was certainly a priority. As a former tom-boy herself, she understood that Ranko was far more adventurous than the average girl, and from her usual appetites certain to live up to certain myths about red heads. Nodoka knew she could not encourage her to indulge her curiosity with her new young man, so it had seemed prudent to invest in something to distract her. From personal experience, she knew a woman needed a "special friend" if she was determined not to stray into some man's bed in spite of all good intentions. Thus, she took advantage of the need to give the teens some privacy during their meal to pick up a little gift for Ranko.

            When she entered the restaurant and saw the pair sitting on the same side of the table, polishing off a dessert and holding hands under the table, she knew it had been wise not to wait until Ranko could accompany her shopping for bedroom novelties. Taking a deep breath, and carefully masking her motherly concern, she approached their table to see if they were ready to go.

            Ranko looked up as her mother approached and smiled. "Auntie Nodoka! Where have you been?" she asked with sparkling eyes and a flushed face, trying to hide some breed of mortification. Nodoka almost grimaced, wondering if she had missed something important. 

            "I had a little errand to run," she responded, smiling back. Noticing the wooden grin and glassy eyes of the boy beside Ranko, along with what appeared to be blood stains on his tux and the table cloth where he was sitting, Nodoka knew she had certainly missed something. She had heard of girls who exploded into full bloom, but she suspected Ranko was entering this new phase of her existence with the same unrestrained enthusiasm she did everything else. Time to nip this in the bud, she decided. "If you'd care to accompany me to the ladies' room, Ranko, I'll tell you all about it. Do you mind, Ryouga?"

            "Not at all, ma'am! We were just about ready to leave, really!"

            "Don't go anywhere, Ryouga. I'll be right back," Ranko insisted.

            The boy nodded and, as they left, heaved a great sigh of relief. He needed to collect his wits and figure out if he was in heaven or if he was in hell. He had seen the Ranma he knew, mixed with the Ranma of the koi rod, the Copy-chan who opened his eyes to his feelings for Ranma, and this strange person Ranma had become for his mother all blended together, and he had not been prepared for her at all! Between a nose bleed and two naps on the floor, he had to wonder if it was really safer to just fight the girl, because he did not know if he would survive dating her. He did know this, though. He was totally in love! The very idea almost scared him witless. The universe did not hold his happiness in high regard, and he was terrified that somehow, some way, this wondrous feeling invited disaster. He pulled the condom out of his pocket, and fingered it thoughtfully. Quite clearly it represented a promise beyond his wildest fantasies, but more importantly, it was a message. He had succeeded in doing what he had set out to do. He had helped her come to terms with her new life, her current identity. In spite of anything that had happened, or anything that might yet happen, what he held in his hands was a symbol of victory. Ryouga Hibiki had successfully accomplished something he had set out to do. For the first time that he could remember, he felt a well of confidence spring up inside him, a brilliant, uplifting sensation that spilled out of him in a familiar glow. 

            He fought the urge to rush outside and let off his first mokotakibisha. 

            While he basked in happiness, Ranko and Nodoka confirmed that they were alone in the ladies room. Nodoka urged her to use one of the stalls, informing her that she had spotted a dance club that was perfect for the next activity of the evening. When Ranko emerged to wash her hands, she was presented with Nodoka's gift. 

            "I know I said we would go shopping for one of these, but it was simpler to find one now, since we're already in the city," Nodoka grinned, seeing the shocked look on the girl's face when she opened the long, narrow box. Ranko nervously pulled the cylindrical object out of its velvet nest, running her fingers over the smooth, rounded surface. It was a little shorter and more slender than what nature had graced her with as a boy, and in spite of herself she looked a little disappointed. Nodoka laughed, "I can see you expected something a little more… impressive. Trust me, this will be a lot easier for you to deal with for starters." Her face became more serious and concerned. "Ranko, I want you to know that I am concerned with your well being. By giving you some means of protection, I am looking out for you, but I am not encouraging you to do anything. Do you understand?"

            Ranko looked up and nodded. "Is that why you bought me this?"

            Nodoka nodded. "It's perfectly understandable that you would find yourself tempted by such a handsome young man, but let me ask you this. Do you wish to be married to him?"

            Ranko paused and bit her lip. Once again the hated marriage question had come up, but after throttling her outright denial, she considered the context of the question. "I'm not thinking that far ahead. I'm just getting used to the idea that I love him. I never would have thought that possible, but I do. And I want to prove it to him," she looked up, hoping her expression would convey her meaning better. 

            Nodoka smiled and blinked sudden moisture out of her eyes. She could see the girl's feelings naked on her face, and shook her head faintly. "I am sure you do, and it's not my place to tell you what you can and can't do. I will say that it would be wise to take this very slowly. You might not feel the same way tomorrow, or a week from now."

            "I've had these feelings a long time, but I couldn't let myself see that," Ranko blurted. For an instant she felt a dread of something going wrong, of things going back to how they were, or her mother learning who she really was. She swallowed hard in sudden terror. She grabbed the woman's hand and stared into her eyes, "You have to understand, no matter what, you have to know none of this affected Ranma! I didn't… I couldn't let any of this be blamed on him! He doesn't know!"

            "Relax, Ranko-chan," Nodoka cupped her cheek. 

            "I'm not Ranma, Ranma's nothing like me, just… you have to believe me!" she demanded quietly, holding herself tight in anxiety. 

            "Certainly not. I don't understand this curse, or how it affects you two, but, I think I understand what you're concerned about," she smiled gently. "You don't have to keep hiding from yourself because of how this effects him. You are two different people, Ranko-chan."

            "Yeah, well," she hung her head. "There have been times when it didn't seem that way. I wish I could explain it, but I'm too afraid you will think I've ruined him," she quickly brushed her cheek, blinking hard, and struggled to keep from hyperventilating. She was coming so close to revealing the truth, damning Ranma. She wanted to throw up. Before she could say any more, her chin was taken in a firm grip and she was forced to meet her mother's eyes.

            "Ranko," the voice was stern, but the eyes holding her gaze were compassionate. "As I get to know you, I know who to look past to see my son. I don't see how you could help but make him a better person. I can't promise I will approve of him, but I will judge him solely for who he is. Do you understand?"

            "I… I don't know. I can try," she offered. 

            "As can I," Nodoka smiled. "Now, put that in your purse. I would suggest you keep that in mind as an alternative to rushing into something you are not prepared for, just because it would feel good. If you are seriously thinking of becoming more intimate with Ryouga, I suggest you find out if he's ready to take that step himself. He seems to be a rather shy and insecure boy, and it might not be the best thing for him to pursue this too quickly."

            "I… um… I sorta already, um, promised…" she babbled.

            "What did you say exactly?"

            "That I was willing to… ah…"

            "Ah! Well, if that's all, then I suggest you leave it be," Nodoka suggested, patting the girl on the shoulder. "You've made your intentions clear enough, so I would leave it up to him to figure out if he's up to it."

            "Um. You don't know Ryouga," she blushed. "He can get really carried away when he gets excited about something. I'm surprised he didn't just blow up on the spot!"

            "Erm. Ranko-chan, dear," she tried not to laugh, "Unless you want to give the poor boy a heart attack or a stroke, I would suggest that you definitely take things very slowly. He sounds like a high strung young man. You need to gradually build up to things with him, one step at a time, or he will be completely useless. Besides, you might enjoy the whole thing much more yourself that way. Think of it as building discipline."

            Ranko nodded, putting the vibrator away and quickly making sure she was presentable, before following Nodoka back to the table and Ryouga. The three quickly settled the bill and walked outside to hear Nodoka's plan for them to go dancing. Ranko and Ryouga blushed and stammered that they did not actually know how to dance, and confessed to having little interest in the activity. Hearing that, Nodoka commented idly that dancing was not too far from their favorite activity. Dancing could be looked at as a kind of kata for couples, with no particular emphasis on combat, it did have techniques and varying levels of complexity and difficulty. Ranko and Ryouga exchanged odd looks. It was not hard to relate this to their experience with pair skating. It should be easy to pick up if they saw anyone who was any good at dancing, they agreed aloud. Nodoka led them to the club and left them to observe the other dancers while she sought out a phone. She made a quick call to the dojo, intending to inform everyone that they would be returning rather late, since the date was going so well. After many long rings, Nabiki answered, and took the message with enthusiasm.

            "Don't worry Auntie Nodoka, you three stay out as long as you like!"

            "We will probably catch the last train home, Nabiki. I suppose I can wait until tomorrow morning to speak to my son," she sighed, shaking her head wearily.

            "Oh, I am so sorry," Nabiki apologized sincerely. "As much as he wants to see you, he won't be home tonight. There has been a crisis with one of Ranma's friends, who has a life threatening condition. Ranma has been doing everything he can to help out the past couple of days. He vowed at the start to do whatever he could to keep his friend from dying. Ranma has a plan to find a cure so they're leaving tonight. I don't know when he will be able to come home."

            Nodoka sighed. It was almost to be expected. "That's okay, Nabiki. I did come to the dojo unannounced. I wouldn't want him to abandon a sick friend for my convenience. I think it's very manly of him to be so generous and helpful to those in need. We will simply have to make up for it next time."

            "I'll let him know. I am sure he'll be glad you understand."

            "Well, that's it I suppose. Goodnight."

            "Wait," Nabiki interrupted. "Would it be possible to put Ranko on the phone? This is a mutual friend of theirs, and I am sure she would want to know what is going on."

            "Um. She's not right with me at the moment. Is it something I can tell her?" Nodoka inquired, craning her neck to see if she could spot Ranko in the crowd across the room. 

            "Well, Dr. Tofu was treating the friend, and Ranko has been working with Ranma to help out. She might know something important Ranma missed, so it would be best if they could speak directly."

            "Dr. Tofu? You mean he's there?"

            "Oh, well, you know how it is, him and Kasumi…"

            "I see. Hold on a moment."

            A moment later Nodoka had found Ranko and brought her back to the phone. Ranko suggested that Nodoka go keep an eye on Ryouga so he did not wander off. When she retreated, Ranko cupped the phone and asked, "What's going on, Nabiki?"

            "It's Ranma-chan," Nabiki informed her, and went on to quickly explain what had been happening while Ranko was on her date. Ranko listened and grew paler and paler as she knotted the phone cord around her fingers. After Nabiki filled her in, she put the doctor on to answer any questions Ranko had Nabiki herself could not answer. Then, when she thought the news could not get any worse, Ranma came on the line and proposed his plan to her. As she hung up the phone her face was white as a sheet. 

Ranma-chan and Fa Shen wandered through the dreamscape they inhabited in growing alarm. To distract themselves from the fear that they might not find a way to regain consciousness, they continued to talk about their lives and the problems waiting to be resolved when they awoke. However, their current dilemma continued to creep up as the focus of their conversation, and occasionally became grounds for argument. Fa Shen had proposed that, since they had stopped fighting for dominance, there had to be something else blocking them. Ranma-chan, highly conscious of how stripped her psyche was at the moment, insisted there could not be anything in her psyche holding them down. Fa Shen resented the implication that she was unconsciously hindering them. Before their argument erupted into insults and blows, they stumbled across something that almost sent Ranma-chan screaming for cover. 

            "Mrrrow?"

            "C-c-c-CAAAT!" Ranma-chan stared at the curious black tom. The cat, awakened from its nap by the shouting girls and wandering out of hiding to investigate, stared back at her. Fa Shen stared at both of them. Apart from the initial shocked utterance, Ranko showed no extraordinary fear, and was rather stunned by the absence. Fa Shen shrugged and crouched to beckon the cat closer. The tom shifted his attention from the human statue to her affectionately cooing twin and inched forward to sniff at her outstretched hand. When the cat finally deigned to allow Fa Shen to pet it, Ranma-chan resumed breathing and frowned. "I don't get it."

            "You mean, why aren't you afraid of this cat?"

            "Yeah," Ranma-chan nodded. "Not that I'm complainin' but, it's been a long time since I could look at one and not freak out completely, at least on the inside." She scratched the back of her head. 

            "Isn't it obvious?" Fa Shen met her twin's eyes. One look told her she needed to spell it out. "Well, think about it. Why would you be afraid of yourself?"

            "My… self…?" Ranma-chan's jaw dropped. She crouched down to stare into the cat's eyes. The cat gazed back with oddly familiar grey eyes. Apart from the feline pupils, they were the same color as Ranma-kun's eyes. The cat yawned hugely as Ranma-chan gaped at Fa Shen, "Ohmigod. It's my neko-ken."

            "Well, your cat personality," Fa Shen nodded. 

            "What's it doin' here?"

            "I don't know. Maybe that means we're buried as deeply as you bury your fears," Fa Shen suggested. Then she stiffened and searched around herself. In a nervous voice, she asked, trying to act casual, "So, uh, is there anything else you're scared of you might wanna tell me about before we, um, meet it?"

            Ranma-chan shrugged. "I'm not really afraid of all that much."

            "You're kidding," Fa Shen narrowed her eyes. 

            "Well, I suppose things scare me, like Akane's temper, but it's not like she terrifies me," Ranma-chan snorted. Seeing that Fa Shen still looked disturbed, she arched an eyebrow. "Is there something you wanna tell me?"

            "Yeah, we really need to wake up. You don't wanna meet what I'm afraid of," Fa Shen warned in a very serious tone. She picked up the cat and the two of them resumed walking. At the moment, they were passing through what appeared to be the wilderness of the China. There was a faint sound of something massive pushing through the forest, and Fa Shen grabbed Ranma-chan's hand and began sprinting away from the sound. Ranma-chan peered back as she stumbled along to keep pace, and gasped at what exploded into the clearing they had just abandoned. It was big. Big enough to swallow her whole, though the saber-like teeth could have minced her into tiny pieces well before that stage. Ranma-chan stared into the burning yellow eyes that dominated the red scaled, armored face, and gulped. 

            "Fa Shen?" she asked in a tiny voice, as the distance between them and the giant predator widened. "Is there a, ah, undefeatable martial arts technique you learned by being thrown into a pit of starving dragons?"

            "Nope. It was just a starving dragon, and if you'd been swallowed by one, you'd be phobic too," Fa Shen retorted in a clipped voice. 

            "Do you…?"

            "I don't even want to know," Fa Shen was pretty sure she did not become a dragon to escape her fear. "But, if I did, it would explain why that idiot, Ergot, was always so hot for me!"

            "Huh?"

            "Ergot, dragon prince of the Musk. I don't remember the first time we met, because I was a bit out of my mind after crawling out of a dragon's throat, but he challenged me relentlessly after that," Fa Shen clarified, before stumbling to a halt. Ranma-chan stared at her, wondering what could make her stand her ground with the embodiment of her fear just around the bend. Then she took a good look at where they were. 

            "Heh, back where we started," she quipped, staring at the familiar mist filled, spring riddled valley. Even with all the cats in China on her heels, Ranma-chan would pause before racing through that place to get away. The pair carefully began to skirt the area, when a thought came to Ranma-chan. "Wait. If this is where we arrived, maybe the way out is here too."

            "Seems reasonable. Do you remember exactly where we arrived?"

            Ranma-chan winced. She certainly did. She quickly led the way. In a moment they were both standing beside the nyanniichaun. "It kinda makes sense. This is where you ended and where I, well, who I am now, began," Ranma-chan muttered, leaning forward to carefully peer into the water. To her surprise, there was a shadowy form submerged in the spring. "Hey. Who's that?" she reared back in surprise. 

            Fa Shen edged forward and knelt by the spring for a closer look. "It's a boy," she commented. She carefully set the black cat down. It padded forward to paw at the water, then decided not to drink and wandered into some tall grass carpeting the left bank of the spring. Fa Shen stood up and paced around until she found a long bamboo pole laying hidden deeper in the waist high grass. With practiced ease, she dipped one end in to fish out the body they had found, idly commenting, "I've heard of people with skeletons in their closet, but a drowned corpse?" She laughed and with a grunt flipped the boy out of the water. To both their surprise, the figure coughed up a lung full of water and curled up on his side. Even more shocking, they got a good look at his face.

            "Hey! That's me!" Ranma-chan shouted, kneeling at his side.

            "That's odd. Does this mean you are afraid of yourself?"

            "Don't be ridiculous!" She grabbed his shoulder and shook him. 

            The boy ignored her, eyes tightly closed as he repeated over and over, "This can't be happening." 

            "What can't be happening?" the girls asked.

            He blinked his eyes open and looked around in fear and confusion. Cautiously, he peered at them and shook his head to clear it. With a blush of embarrassment, he sighed. "It must have been a dream. Thank the Kami!"

            The girls exchanged confused looks. "A dream?"

            "Yeah. Uh, it's kinda weird, but I don't see him… it… whatever. So it had to have been a dream," he was still looking around. When he gave them a description of Genma and asked if they had seen him, an alarmed suspicion crossed Ranma-chan's face. He was still talking, "He's my old man. We came here to do some training. I musta got blindsided or somethin' 'cuz I coulda sworn my old man turned into a panda before he knocked me into that spring."

            "You're kidding, right?"

            "I told you it was crazy," he groused, standing up. "Huh. That guide's gone too. Stupid old man, leavin' me knocked out in a pond and runnin' off to stuff his face or somethin'!"

            "Is this… am I seeing this right?" Fa Shen asked nervously.

            "Hey. Do you know who you are and where you are?" Ranma-chan asked in trepidation. 

            "Sure. Ranma Saotome," he puffed up proudly, "Heir to the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts. Oh, I guess I should thank you or somethin' for dragging me outta that spring."

            "Is there something about that spring you're forgetting?"

            "Huh? Supposed to be cursed or somethin' I guess. The guide was goin' on about cursed springs. Called the place Jusenkyo. 'There over one hundred spring here, each one have own tragic legend!' Shoulda known it'd be some tourist trap and not a real training ground," he grumbled. 

            "It's not possible," Ranma-chan was beginning to hyperventilate. 

            "This isn't just your guy side?" Fa Shen leaned toward her.

            Ranma-chan just shook her head, beginning to tremble as the inconceivable began to take shape in her mind. Fa Shen noticed her eyes beginning to glaze and frowned in sudden, intense thought. The boy claiming to be Ranma looked at them oddly. He shrugged and was about to wander off when Fa Shen caught hold of him. "Wait. There's some things you don't know. You don't want to wander off in here."

            "'In' here? We're outdoors. What are you talkin' about?"

            "Oh, this is not good!" Fa Shen began to sweat, staring at Ranma-chan as something crept back into her mind. At the clinic, after her battle with Ranma, she had been informed of and finally remembered her death. There had been a sense that something had happened between that moment and her awakening in Ranma-chan. She had instinctively avoided it, but it suddenly played out now. It was a haunting, timeless memory of a dark, cold place barely illuminated by a distant, alluring light. She had been trapped and tormented by flickering shadows of countless beings. She had initially fought the shadows, trying to defeat them and break free of her prison. Again and again, she had lost these battles, feeling a tiny piece of her essence torn away each time before the shadows vanished. She learned to avoid the shadows, ignore their intrusions, and wait for a special kind with a certain feel, a certain vulnerability. These planned ambushes also resulted in more pain and loss, but finally, after what seemed an eternity, she found the perfect one, and charged into battle. For the first time, the shadow was pressed back to reveal a face. A face she had recognized as that of her nemesis, Lo Shen. She had attacked him instantly, with renewed rage, their ki spilling over each other and blending before the pair of them sank into oblivion. "He's Ranma," Fa Shen gasped.

            "I can see that, Fa Shen!" Ranma-chan growled. 

            "Do I know you two?" Ranma squinted, trying to place their faces. He had just introduced himself, but they talked as if they were already familiar with him. Also, there was a nagging sense of familiarity about them. An unlikely family resemblance that disturbed him, since apart from his father, he really did not know much about his family. His scrutiny went unnoticed as they continued to argue, however. 

            "You don't understand. When he fell into the spring, I attacked him. We dragged each other down here," Fa Shen shouted. 

            "What?"

            "I don't remember fighting you. I don't fight girls."

            "Shut up!" the two girls roared at him. 

            "Sheesh. Stupid girls."

            "No," Ranma-chan shook her head as her initial suspicion was confirmed. "That's not possible. I am Ranma." The boy stared at her in disbelief and then started laughing. "How can that be possible!?" she ignored Ranma and grabbed Fa Shen, shaking her roughly. 

            "You know what you said, about how this is where I ended and you began? You were exactly right," Fa Shen grabbed Ranma-chan and forced her to stop shaking her. The confusion her words caused was more effective. "Think about it. When he fell in, I jumped him. Male ki, female ki, it all blended together, because we have the same soul, but neither of us could control the whole so a new person, a 'whole' person formed and took control of it."

            "What the hell are you two talkin' about?"

            "When we figure that out, we'll tell you," Fa Shen snapped. She took Ranma-chan carefully into her arms, sensing she was too shocked to deal with the possibility. She wondered if it could possibly be true. Then she remembered what her mother had tried to make her do. 

            About a year before she died, her mom had taken her to Jusenkyo and tried to get her to jump into the nanniichaun. It had something to do with tapping into her full potential, her mother's animal heritage, something that could be unlocked by mastering the powers of a curse, like the traditional masters of the Shokei Fist, and mastered by embracing her masculinity. Because she had not been willing to do it, her mother had refused to reveal the mystery of her origins. All she did know was that if she had accepted the curse it would have been some kind of catalyst. The combination of male and female ki would supposedly have spawned a new version of herself capable of achieving her full potential. She leaned the other girl's head on her shoulder and whispered this story into her ear. "That's the real reason why you have the ki of two people, because you took mine and Ranma's and made it yours," she concluded. 

            "But, if I'm not Ranma, who the hell am I?" she wailed. 

            "You already told me. You are YOU," Fa Shen asserted. 

            "Why did I think I was Ranma?" she was looking for loop holes.

            "I don't know. Maybe because he was awake when you were created, you just grabbed everything in his mind. You might have grabbed all of my memories at the same time, but our personalities weren't compatible, so you suppressed all of my memories," Fa Shen guessed, finding it easy to imagine that happening. Meanwhile, Ranma was listening to the two of them and getting a spooked and suspicious look on his face. 

            He swallowed and spoke up, "Now I know where I recognize you from. You were in the pool. You attacked me," he accused Fa Shen angrily. More of the memory returned, with it some disturbing information. With a shudder, he added, "It felt like you did something to me, changed me into a… a…" He stopped and patted himself down. "I'm still a guy. What happened? Was it real? Did I really see Pop turn into a panda!? Did I really turn into a girl!?"

            The two girls turned to him and Fa Shen sighed. Ranma-chan was speechless. She stepped between the two and carefully explained to Ranma what had happened. It took a while, because he refused to believe until Ranma-chan woodenly began to parrot scenes from his life, in detail. Then, to prove where they were, Fa Shen tracked down the tom cat and confronted Ranma with it. Like Ranma-chan he expected to go into hysterics, but then he realized the cat inspired no fear. With some difficulty, he accepted that this was some kind of dream and openly wished he would wake up soon so he could look for a cure, not relishing the idea that he would be turned into a girl whenever he was splashed with cold water. When he was told that they had bigger problems to solve before returning to China, he gasped.

            "What do you mean, return to China!? That's where I am, isn't it?" 

            "We're in Japan, idiot. We came back about ten months ago," Ranma-chan rolled her eyes. She wondered if he was even following the conversation. With forced patience, she quickly outlined what had happened since Ranma was cursed. "So, you see, we have to fix the problem caused by the mirror. It would kill us to be that far from our reflections." Ranma seemed to have stopped listening, distracted by the implications of all this history.  

            "You stole a year of my life!?" Ranma finally realized, turning on Ranma-chan in anguish. 

            "She didn't steal anything, and you're not the only one here who has had their life interrupted. Hell, you're lucky the two of us got into a struggle that dragged us down like this, or you might have never been woken up!"

            "Huh?"

            "You don't remember any of the things she told you, right? You wouldn't be able to bitch about it if we hadn't woken you up," Fa Shen pointed out. "Now, you're in the same boat as we are. We need to wake up, because it's entirely possible that we're all dying right now anyway!"

            "Um," Ranma-chan paused thoughtfully. "It's possible we only got trapped here because of him. Can either of you think of some way the three of us can wake up?"

            The cat mewed at the three of them, jumping from Fa Shen's arms and heading away from the springs. Pausing at the head of a path, it turned to stare at them. They all exchanged glances. The cat's tail flicked impatiently as he yowled at them. Fa Shen shrugged, "Maybe he has an idea."

            The two Ranmas shuddered, but followed Fa Shen as she fell into step behind the cat. In a short while, the image of Jusenkyo vanished to be replaced by a cliff overlooking a vast ocean of swirling clouds and fog. The cat sat down on the edge of the precipice and began to clean himself. 

            "Well, this is helpful," the boy rolled his eyes. 

            "What do you make of it?" Fa Shen asked Ranma-chan.

            She leaned out over the edge and frowned. "Leap of faith?"

            "You want us to jump offa here!?"

            "Seems as good as any other idea we've come up with."

            Ranma-chan turned back around to face them, then froze. "Uh, unless you prefer that!" she pointed, turned, and jumped off the cliff. The other two gaped, then turned around. The dragon was slinking forward into position to pounce on them. They looked at each other for a heart beat, then raced to the edge of the cliff. 


	28. The Art of Dating, Step Four: Seduction

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Twenty-Eight: The Art of Dating, Step Four: Seduction

Nodoka had engaged Ryouga in small talk while Ranko spoke at some length on the phone. Although the woman was trying to be subtle about it, Ryouga grasped that the topic of conversation was really the prospect of sex between Ryouga and Ranko. The probing, seemingly innocent questions about his interest in and intentions toward Ranko, were making the boy's blood boil. He was painfully aware of what she was getting at, but deliberately misinterpreted such questions as, had he ever been in a "close" relationship with a girl before, was he, or had he been engaged to a girl, with his constant traveling were there any profound gaps in his education or, since he rarely came in contact with his parents, had he found other ways to educate himself in the roles and responsibilities of men and women in various relationships. Did he know how to treat a girl, make her happy. Did he love Ranko, and did he find her attractive. He honestly confessed that there were girls he had been drawn to, who he believed he loved but who he did not believe loved him. The relationship he had with Ranko was unique in a lot of ways. He explained that, though he loved her, he was going out with her so that she could find herself as a normal girl, and he was willing to do anything to help her find happiness in her life.

            "I've done more to hurt her or make her ashamed of herself than just about anyone else," Ryouga concluded softly. "To make up for that, I'm willing to do anything she wants me to, Mrs. Saotome."

            "I got the impression that she has done her part to upset you, as well."

            "You have no idea!"

            "Would you consider marrying her?"

            "I do. I'd love to. I just don't know if she'll ever be ready for that."

            Nodoka paused, then carefully went on, "She is willing to make love to you. Do you believe either of you are ready for that?" Nodoka almost hated herself for asking, but it seemed neither of these children had anything like adequate parental support. Someone had to step forward as an adult and point out the risks and dangers they faced. 

            Ryouga swallowed. "I can't believe she told you that. It's kind of scary, Mrs. Saotome. Normally I am so afraid of rejection, or being tricked or made fun of that the very idea of doing something like that would make me a nervous wreck. But," he sighed and turned to look at Ranko hungrily. "She's so honest, so serious, I believe she wants it as bad as I do. To have someone, to hold someone, it's what I dream of when I am alone. I'm almost always alone. Now that I've had some time to get over the shock, I think maybe I am ready."

            Nodoka bit her lip. "Is she? Honestly?"

            "I almost think she has to," Ryouga fidgeted. "I can't explain it."

            "Well, I must say, you have done the most to bring her out of her shell. I keep forgetting that it all seems so sudden because I only learned of all of this today. Please forgive me for intruding on such a private matter, but I am just concerned for her well-being. I see you two are used to fending for yourselves, and I suppose this is just the latest thing you two have had to face without help or guidance. I will say this, however, and I mean it most strongly, Ryouga. If you hurt her, if things should go wrong and you fail to do the honorable thing, I will see to it that you pay whatever price is necessary to restore her honor," Nodoka warned in a severe voice. At the same time, she offered a compassionate and motherly look.

            Ryouga swallowed and nodded. Firming his jaw, he returned, "If somehow circumstances were reversed, I promise you I would not allow any harm to come to her because of you."

            Nodoka's eyes widened, but there was such a powerful tone of protectiveness in his voice she did not rebuke him for implying she might ever harm Ranko. She simply nodded, nobly and gracefully.

            Ranko had finished her call and walked up to them. She looked extremely pale and distant, but hesitated to answer Nodoka's concerned inquiry. Shaking her head, and grabbing Ryouga by the hand, she announced, "I need a moment to deal with the bad news, but I can't think in here. It's too hot and noisy. If it's alright with you, I'd like to step outside and walk for a bit before dancing. I'll take Ryouga with me."

            "I can come too," Nodoka offered.

            "No. I appreciate it, but I also have some things I need to talk to Ryouga about privately," she rejected demurely. Nodoka studied her thoughtfully a moment before nodding.

            "I will save us a table here, then. We have until the last train departs to go home. I suppose you two have some things to discuss and it would be good to get that out of the way so you can enjoy the rest of the night."

            "Thanks, M- Mrs. Saotome," Ranko gave a grateful smile and dragged Ryouga outside. After walking half a block, she proceeded to fill him on the news. Ryouga was stunned to hear about Fa Shen's awakening and the struggle for possession that had laid Ranma-chan out. Even though he found Ranma's suggestion to deal with Fa Shen a little disturbing, it was obvious Ranma-chan was far more upset. "I mean, it makes sense. I understand exactly how it will work, because I felt what happened to him when the curse was triggered. I'm just not sure I'll still be me if I get sealed up in Ranma-chan that way."

            Ryouga heard panic begin to enter her voice and pulled her aside, setting them on a convenient park bench, to calm her down. "Ranko, Ranko, calm down. I was there all day today while you were all working on the ki bottling techniques, and I pulled Ranma aside to talk about what the mirror did to him," Ryouga held her in his arms, and made his voice as reassuring as possible. "I am curious if the mirror can be used to cure me, so I've been giving everything I can learn about it lots of thought."

            "Ryouga," Ranko was instantly worried about him, instead of herself. "Don't even think about that! You could end up trapped as a pig forever!"

            "I wasn't planning on letting my pig side out, idiot," he frowned playfully. "I've actually been thinking about what the mirror does with ki. If I let a male reflection of me out, but shifted all my ki into the reflection, it would be sort of like stepping out of my cursed body into a completely normal one."

            "Oh!" she looked surprised. "You know, I didn't think of that! It might just actually work!"

            "Yeah, well… There's still that part about it killing my cursed body I'm not too thrilled about. It's an idea, but there's a lot still to figure out," he shrugged that off. "What I do know is that Ranma remembers Copy-kun's mind blending with Ranma's. When Ranma was splashed, Copy-kun remained part of him even though the reflection, and the feel of having a second body disappeared."  
            "Um. I can sort of remember that, feeling that happen to him, since all of that blended with me when I fell into the mirror then."

            "Right, so, you'll be aware of becoming Ranma-chan. You'll still be you and her at the same time. I mean, since she's considered herself a girl, it should not change you that much, right?" he tried to sound optimistic, burying his own dread of being wrong and losing her.

            "I… Okay, so, maybe it's not like I won't be there, Ryouga," she relented, yet tensing up again. "I just d-don't kn-know if- if- if I'll still f-feel the same about you a-as I d-do now!" she stuttered as tears welled up in her eyes. "I p-promised y-you… b-but… I can't m-make that promise f-for h-her."

            "Hey! Come on!" he shook her gently. "It means a lot to me that you would want to… well… you know… with me. It really does, but I'm not going to hold you to that even now."

            Ranko sat up and stared into his eyes in sudden anger. "You! You don't WANT me!?"

            Ryouga gasped and flapped his mouth in instant dread. Somehow he had managed to say just the wrong thing, big time! With desperate, placating gestures, he babbled, "N-no! I don't- Aaaah! I mean, Yes! I want to throw you on the ground, rip off all your clothes and- and…" he pinched his nose and took a deep breath while his eyes rolled in his skull. Carefully editing out the graphic descriptions that typically came to mind, in accompaniment of skyrocketing blood pressure, he summarized, "…Do things to you that will make your toes curl!" He forced the images out of his mind and concentrated on regulating his pulse. If they continued to bring up sex, he would HAVE to get laid soon or his brain would liquefy and pour out his nose.

            Ranko was just staring at him in shock. She had always assumed he was as naive about sex as Ranma had been. "You, ah… actually have some kind of idea what to do… ah… sex wise?" she asked in a small voice.

            "Come on! When you've hung around with as many sailors, dock workers, truck drivers and monks as I have, you pick up a lot of interesting information! My head's been crammed with so much pornography and dirty talk I can't even look at a girl without thinking of all the ways to, ah… ahem," he shook his head and put a handkerchief to his nose. "It's really embarrassing, Ranko. People like to hide that sort of stuff in closets and pantries and basements, and there have been times when I've been locked in a room for days with nothing to do but stare at dirty posters and read dirty magazines out of sheer boredom. Don't even ask me about being stuck on a ship!"

            "You're saying you're a pervert?" she twitched.

            Ryouga shrugged and slumped, "Not because I want to be. I've just wandered into too many strange places too many times to be innocent. I'm not like Happosai. I don't revel in it, and seeing guys do that just pisses me off. Fact is, though, I've seen so much of that stuff that I am absolutely desperate to get laid!" he shuddered. "You have no idea how hard it was for me to deal with you under the spell of the koi rod. If I had not wanted to kill you, or that I'd vowed to save myself for Akane…"

            Ranko stiffened and found herself at the far end of the bench. Somehow she had teleported out of his grip to put some distance between them. That was as far as she got though, because as strong as the repulsion she felt imagining Ranma's reaction to this admission, her attraction to him would not let her go farther away. Hugging herself, she considered things anew. Taking a deep breath, she looked up. "Ryouga. I sort of promised my Mom that I'd go slow with you. But what's happening now, what you just told me, it changes everything."

            "Ranko…"

            "No. Just hear me out. This plan to save Fa Shen, that's a really good thing. She was murdered, for cryin' out loud! I'd do anything to give someone like that her life back. Even if I had to die!" she looked down and visibly shivered. When she looked back, there was a clear desperation in her eyes, showing all of her hunger. "I had a whole year to find out what it really meant to be a girl, but I was too afraid to risk it. I know what happened to Copy-chan better than anyone, because I was her. Call it amnesia, but when I remembered everything before that, Copy-chan was wiped out, overwhelmed and cast aside. In the short time she had, she only wanted one thing, Ryouga, and she never got it. I don't want that to happen to me again."

            Ryouga stared at her, understanding that she had been as hurt by the loss of Copy-chan as he had been. He sagged. "But… like this?"

            "I know. It sucks for you, 'cuz if I am right about this, you have as much to lose," she stopped hugging herself and began to wring her hands. "If we make love, it might actually hurt worse, but at least there won't be any regrets, Ryouga. If tonight is all we ever have, don't you want to know you made the most of it?"

            Ryouga knew he was losing the fight. He wanted to be noble. He wanted to resist the temptation to take advantage of her desperation, but her arguments were breaking him down. He wanted this. He needed this. Almost as much as she did. Before he could try one more time to resist, she delivered the final blow.

            "Besides, if we do this, it might just be enough to make sure the new Ranko loves you as much as I do," she murmured. Ryouga sighed. Ranko stood up and took the few steps necessary to stand in front of him in all her glory. Taking his hand, she pulled him to his feet and led him into the depths of the park their wandering had brought them to. He offered no resistance. With joy and trepidation, they sought out a bower in which to purchase a future with their virginity. Naturally, they were both scared witless by the decision. 

Back at the dojo, the vigil continued. Nabiki had found herself unable to sit around staring at an unconscious Ranma-chan and wandered downstairs after Dr. Tofu showed Ranma and Akane up. She had sat down with the doctor to discuss the situation when the phone began ringing. After a bit, it was obvious that Kasumi was too preoccupied to come down stairs to answer it, so she took the call herself. After listening to Nodoka's plans, she had forced herself to sound as enthusiastic as possible, urging her to stay out as late as possible. At the same time, it seemed prudent to warn Ranko, so she schemed to get her on the line. When she put the doctor on, she scrambled upstairs and told Ranma to explain his plan to her. She listened in on his end of the conversation eagerly, and then confronted him when they hung up.

            "So, is she willing to do it?" she asked.

            "I think the idea scared her," he sighed, worried by the choked sob that accompanied her agreement. "She says she'll be ready to go tonight, when she gets back. If Ranma-chan isn't awake, we'll carry her out there with us and use her to unlock the mirror. Maybe Ranko will be able to wake her up from the inside if nothing else works. We can hide out in the dojo until Mom goes to sleep and then leave."

            "Seems like a plan. I'll call Mr. Tengawa and let him know you'll be going over tonight," she offered, patting him on the arm. She had seen his concerned look, and could guess how Ranko had reacted and why. Shaking her head, she picked up the phone and watched Ranma stumble upstairs in a funk. "Things just never get easier for him… them… whatever."

            The call itself was not too difficult. In spite of the late hour, and the promise of an even later interruption, the man from the mansion seemed grateful to be able to help Ranma and company out. He listened to Nabiki's explanation, assuring her that even if he did not understand their plan, he would happily accommodate any effort to undo the tragic situation the mirror's victims faced. After concluding the call, Nabiki wandered upstairs to her room. In spite of the current chaos, she did have homework to do and a business to run. Focusing all of her concentration, she ploughed through a small mountain of paperwork in an hour. As she finished, she found her thought slipping back to Nodoka's call, and from there to the scene at the train station. The humor of that situation lifted her spirits a bit, and might do some good with the others as well. Slipping out of her room, she entered the guest room chuckling. On impulse, Nabiki squatted down next to Ranma-chan and smiled. What better accomplice to help her drop the bomb. Several others had taken a turn at talking to the unconscious girl, in hopes of rousing her, so no one really paid attention to what she said. She started with a report of what was going on at school, focusing on the antics of a certain kendoist stewing over the unholy union of Ranma and the Pig-Tailed-Girl. 

            "I knew he would cause problems with the dates, so I carefully kept the whole thing under wraps. Unfortunately, that creepy kid, Gosunkugi, was spying on Akane and got wind of it and told Kuno. Naturally, he had to go rescue his goddess from Ryouga!" At last, she made it to the punch line. Raising her voice, she laughed, "Oh, Ranma, you should have seen it! Your mother and Kuno! You would have absolutely died!"

            To everyone's shock, Ranma-chan sat bolt upright and almost slammed her skull into Nabiki's. Obviously disoriented, the red-head stared about, oblivious at first to what Nabiki had said. Closing her eyes, she thought back to her last memory, jumping off a cliff to escape from the dragon in her attempt to wake up. She recalled hurting into the sea of clouds and becoming disoriented, until it felt like she was actually falling up. The mist engulfing her had grown steadily darker, her limbs going numb, before she shot up past the echoes of Ranma and Ranko placed in her mind by the cursed mirror. She had been awakening when Nabiki's voice intruded, suddenly snapping awake. Finally, the content of those words penetrated. "What!? Kuno talked to my mom!?" she shrieked. Nabiki, sat back on her heels and nodded, enjoying the shock on everyone's faces. She carefully kept her own surprise masked, deciding that she had an excellent opportunity to break the long tension and have some fun at the same time. 

            "What did he do? What did he say to her!?"

            "Well, first he attacked her with his bokken…" Nabiki gracefully rolled back and fully upright as Ranma-chan exploded to her feet in agitation. "Then, after she disarmed him…" a roar of babbled shock interrupted as everyone spoke at once. Nabiki kept grinning as she continued, "…she forced him to explain himself, and he told her all about Ranko's and Ranma's curse." As expected, Ranma-chan proceeded to wail and run around the room in terror. Nabiki turned to the others, "Well, I think that proves she's not Fa Shen. No one but Ranma could panic like that!"

            "I'm doomed! Doomed!" Ranma-chan cried, coming around on her second lap. She paused and grabbed Nabiki, "What did Mom do? What did she say? Is she coming here to make me commit seppuku!?"

            "Well," Nabiki schooled her features, "I was at a distance, so it was hard to get her entire reaction." Ranma-chan pleaded with her, pulling out handfuls of wadded bills and stuffing them in Nabiki's hands. "Well, for a second, it looked like she was thinking of engaging you to Kuno…" she deliberately fudged the identity, referring to Ranko as an extension of Ranma-chan, so she was ready to be cut off.

            "Aaaaaaahhh! She's going to torture me before she kills me!" Ranma-chan sobbed.

            "…but she remembered you weren't… I mean, Ranko wasn't her daughter," Nabiki continued, finally correcting herself. "Actually, she was really impressed that Ranko has been sacrificing her womanhood to protect her son from the curse they share, and offered to adopt Ranko." Nabiki decided she had tortured Ranma-chan enough to start cluing her in to the real story. 

            "What?" Ranma-chan stopped bawling and stared at her. It suddenly clicked. "Wait, Kuno doesn't understand the curse! He thinks… Nabiki!" she raged, curling her hands into fists and leaning in close to the middle Tendo sister. When Nabiki did not flinch, Ranma-chan eased back. "Oh, man. If Mom ever learns the truth, she'll think we lied to her. I am so dead!"

            "I don't know," Nabiki sighed, "I mean it's dangerous to contradict delusional maniacs. I don't think Ranko can be blamed for humoring him, and then forgetting to explain the truth. I mean, who could expect her not to be distracted on such a romantic date."

            Ranma-chan twitched and eyed Nabiki carefully, realizing the girl was literally pulling her fat out of the fire. "Okay, Nabiki. What's this gonna cost me, exactly?" she asked in a suddenly tired voice.

            "Don't worry, Ranma-chan. I've already drawn up an installment plan," Nabiki grinned. "Actually, considering the size of the investment, I'll write off the fee for waking you up entirely!"

            Ranma-chan winced, then glimpsed a possible way out of the mountain of debt Nabiki was about to bury her under. "What if she doesn't learn the truth?"

            "Think of it as an insurance policy," Nabiki crossed her arms.

            Ranma-chan sagged in defeat. 

            The fiancées, Shampoo and Ukyo, picked that moment to collect their wits and shake off the confusion of Nabiki's revelation. As one, they tackled Ranma-chan to the floor, welcoming her back to the land of the living in a fashion any otherwise straight girl would find quite disturbing. "Kyaaaaa! Wha-! Mmmfff! Are you tryin' to kiss me or each other!? Yaaaahhhh!"

            "Ah, the exuberance of youth," Cologne sighed, and exited the room.

            "Oh, my! That's no way for girls… Eeep!" Kasumi raced out into the hall. 

            Nabiki leaned down and looked at what Shampoo's and Ukyo's affections were doing to Ranma-chan's clothes, and cleared her throat, "Forgive me for asking, but, where exactly are the three of you going with this?" When they all looked up at her in shock and embarrassment, she was holding her camera pointed at them and sighing, "I only have half a roll left. Do I have time to get some more film?" As Nabiki gave them an evil smile. Ranma-chan squirted out of the dual embrace and shot out the window. 

            "Mercenary Girl ruin so so sweet moment with Airen!"

            "I don't believe that just happened," Ukyo blushed and climbed out the window after Ranma-chan. "Wait, Ran-chan! I didn't mean… It's not what you think! I was just happy to see you back!"

            Nabiki continued to meet Shampoo's glare with a nasty smirk. "Shampoo. Girl, if you're that desperate to make a man out of Ranma-chan," she began, forcing a look of concerned interest, "I suggest you start by remembering to use the hot water." She idly pointed at the steaming kettle that still sat next to where Kasumi had knelt. She waited to savor the look on Shampoo's face before turning to exit the room. 

            Mouse met her in the doorway, and slipped past Nabiki to approach Cologne. The old woman perked up and held out her hand. Mousse pulled some books out of his sleeves and handed them to the matriarch. Cologne dismissed him and proceeded to pour hot water from the kettle Kasumi had been guarding over the books. 

            "What are you doing?" Nabiki asked, turning back into the room.

            "Since I knew about Son-In-Law's curse, I brought along a few special books on Jusenkyo and related topics. I had hoped that if I could offer a cure, Son-In-Law could be persuaded to accept his marriage to my Great-Granddaughter," Cologne chuckled, shaking the excess water out of the book, and opening it to a book marked page. "Seeing as things are getting progressively more complicated, I decided it would be wise to review the details of the Jusenkyo cursed victim of the Mirror of Broken Souls."

            Nabiki was about to probe further when piercing screams from Ranma and Ranma-chan could be heard shaking the dojo. Since Ranma had been sitting across the room from them, the shock was quite painful. After shaking their heads, Nabiki, Cologne, Mousse, Akane and Kasumi turned to stare at Ranma. Ranma was staring at his hands in shock. When he proceeded to pat himself down, and turn pale, Cologne jumped to her feet. Staring at him in horror, she gasped, "A full measure!" She tore through the book at her feet and paused at a passage. Looking up at everyone, she commanded, "The curse must not be triggered! Under no circumstances must she be doused with hot water!" While everyone else stared at her in shock, Ranma leapt to his feet and ran out of the room. 

            Akane frowned in alarm and went after him, while everyone else went to spread the warning Cologne had just given, and make sure that Ranma-chan was informed most of all. 

            Akane tracked Ranma to the upstairs bathroom and looked on in shock. The sink faucet was turned full blast and Ranma was soaked in cold water. Worse, he was staring into the mirror muttering, "I didn't change… I'm still male… I'm stuck as a man!"

            "Ranma?" Akane edged forward, feeling an unformed terror. "Ranma! What's going on!? How could you forget you were cured!?"

            "Cured!?" the boy howled, gesturing at himself wildly. "You call this cured! I don't even know what I'm doing in this body!"

            Akane swallowed hard. She wanted to faint. She wanted it not to be true. She wanted to be angry at him for trying to mess with her head. She could not ignore the way he was standing, the subtle nuances of his posture. "Fa Shen?" she asked in a weak, stricken voice. 

            "How did this happen?" the boy cried, tears beginning to spill down his cheeks, as he collapsed to the floor. Akane turned and ran back to get Cologne.

Fa Shen flopped down onto her side and curled up into a ball, shaking with sobs as she raked her mind for some explanation of what had happened. It was hard to think with her senses screaming details into her mind that she desperately did not want to acknowledge. It was unbelievable, the feelings were not unusual in the sense she might not categorize them as painful, but at the same time she was suffering a sense of incredible deformity. It registered as agony, because she could feel parts that were missing, and parts that should not be there, and everything else was somehow warped. At a deep level, she knew the actual pain was caused by her instant rejection of the body she now inhabited. Her refusal to accept this new reality. Rather than face it, she turned inward and played through her memory, trying to figure out how it had happened. 

            She had been standing on the top of the cliff with Ranma-chan and the Ranma they had freed. Ranma-chan had warned them about the dragon stalking them and jumped off the cliff. They had followed. When they all hit the ocean of clouds, they had lost sight of each other, and the churning miasma had left Fa Shen with no point of reference, no sense of up or down or movement, just directionless falling. As the fog darkened around her, it also seemed to retreat. Soon there was a vast blackness her eyes could not focus on. She was about to panic when she noticed a distant form hurtling roughly towards her. She had squinted her eyes, and begun to focus her will on moving herself closer, to intercept the streaking object. She had no idea if it worked. It appeared as if the person suddenly began veering towards her. She was able to make out features and sighed in relief as she saw that it was the boy, Ranma. He was racing directly toward her at incredible speed, so she braced herself for impact and waited. To her shock, when he hit her, there was no physical sensation. 

            She blinked. 

            It had been like a psychic attack, her mind assaulted with thousands of images and sensations. Memories, she realized, as she finally stopped fighting to shut them out. As soon as she relaxed, the chaos settled into the back ground. She suddenly found herself aware of a chain of events that began with a girl emerging from a spring, shocked to discover she was no longer a boy, following the course of that cursed boy's life up to and through a mirror that cured him, but forced him to watch as other versions of himself lived his worst nightmares. With a cold flash, she noted that, while the boy she remembered could remember an entire life, he only had one year's worth of his own memories. He had been a projection of Ranma-chan's psyche. It was as if her mind had bitten off and consumed the reflection. Fa Shen gagged and vomited on the tiled floor she rested on. 

            An hour ago, she had wanted to live again in the worst way. 

            It was suddenly clear that now she was.

            Akane reentered the bathroom, leading Cologne. 

            "Is it true?" the old woman asked, sadly.

            Fa Shen nodded, forcing herself to accept the consequences. 

            "Can you move?"

            Another nod.

            "Well, come on then. I need to check on Ranma-chan. Come along so I can keep an eye on you. Akane?" she turned to the youngest Tendo girl and gestured for her to help Fa Shen stand up. Akane was literally shaking, her emotions were totally at war, and her mind raced with questions and demands for explanations. Unable to master any of those, she mindlessly crouched down and helped Fa Shen clean her… himself off and stand. When Fa Shen looked into her eyes, there was a haunting echo of Ranma, the Ranma she had finally opened up to, inside them. Akane flinched.

            "I… I am so sorry, Akane," the familiar voice breathed in agony.

            Akane felt her heart stop. Those words told her more than she had wanted to know. Fa Shen had done more than possess Ranma's body. She had absorbed him. "How?" she gasped. 

            "He wasn't real, like Ranma-chan. He was a projection, a separate piece of her," Fa Shen whispered. In a terrible way, she wanted to admit to what she had done, even if it had been an accident. 

            "I'd say it was significantly more than a piece," Cologne's voice intruded, grimly. Fa Shen and Akane stared at her. Cologne sighed. "The ki you possess is at least half of what Ranma-chan possessed. Enough to seal yourself off from her completely. Now hurry, I need to see what damage this has done to Ranma-chan," she commanded, showing her agitation. This spurred Akane and Fa Shen into motion. The three headed downstairs in time to see Ukyo dragging Ranma-chan's body into the Tea Room with the assistance of Dr. Tofu.

            "Ranma!" Akane cried, seeing the limp form in their hands.

            Cologne took a hard look at the cursed teen and strangled a cry of shock. "Goddess Above!"

            Ranma-chan's eyes fluttered and her head lolled in their direction. "Wha' happ'nd? I feel so light headed…" she squeaked. 

            "Ranma!? Oh, thank the Kami. You're alive!" Akane raced over. 

            "Di' an'body see wha' happ'nd t' th' oth'r guy?" she grinned. 

            Cologne crossed the room, as Ranma-chan was laid out, and seized her wrist. By this time, everyone in the house had migrated into the room. She loudly repeated her warning to keep all hot water away from her. From across the room it had looked like every erg of ki had been drained from her body, but this close she could see the faintest trace permeating her body. To her trained senses, there was just enough energy to trace the outline of her body on a cellular level. "I am glad I overlooked this," Cologne muttered in relief. Turning to the others she announced. "I don't understand how it happened, but Ranma-chan has entered the final phase of the mirror's curse. Half of her ki shifted to Fa Shen, there, in Ranma's body. The other half I presume passed on to Ranko. The only ki Ranma-chan has left is that absorbed by the curse to power her transformations. It's stored up like a battery, but if the curse is triggered, there is only enough energy to destroy this form. The process would expose the energy to the mirror and send it to the reflections preventing it from creating Ranma-chan's male form."

            "What?" came the general, shocked reply.

            "This whole time I overlooked the curse in estimating Ranma's ki. I forgot that a significant amount is siphoned off by the curse, which the victim eventually replaces. Thus, Ranma had more than the ki of two normal people. Just barely enough to survive what has now happened," Cologne reached into her robe and pulled out two bottles of water. She carefully checked the labels and put one back. She opened the second one and poured the contents over Ranma-chan. "Forgive me child, but this is the only way."

            "What was that? What do you mean?" Akane stared at Cologne.

            "Water from the chisuiiton," Cologne tossed the empty bottle at Akane.

            "You locked her curse!?"

            "It was the only way to prevent a fatal accident."

            There was general silence.

            Nabiki cleared her throat. "So, what's in the other bottle?"

            Cologne blinked and shrugged. "It's an antidote to the sacred waters of Togenkyo."

            Everyone blinked. 

            "What would you need that for?"

            "It's something every Amazon warrior carries. To prevent the water's use by outsiders to assure only the birth of sons," Cologne sighed. "Just one of the many ways the outside world has attempted to erase the tribe from existence."

            There was another long silence. 

            Ranma-chan cleared her throat, "The pain is gone. I can barely feel anything though." Her body twitched faintly. "Uh. I can't seem to move either." There was a long pause as her face frowned in thought. "Please tell me I'm not gonna stay like this. I think I'd rather be dead," she mourned. 

            "Is there any chance Ranma's plan could somehow undo this?"

            Everyone looked at Soun. Cologne looked at Fa Shen, asked a few questions and then announced that effectively Ranma's solution had spontaneously occurred. Because Ranma-chan's connection to the reflections had been overlooked as a byproduct of the mirror's influence no one had realized it was not necessary to return to the mirror in order for Fa Shen to escape. At best, going back the mirror would have only allowed them to control which body she inherited. From what Cologne could determine now, the reflections had solidified and were no longer able to re-enter the mirror. 

            "So, there's no longer a cured Ranma," Soun sighed.

            Oddly, Genma looked somewhat relieved. "Such is life, Tendo-kun. We can only nurse my son back to health so the curse can be unlocked. In hope of that, we should renew the original engagement, don't you think?" 

            "Absolutely, Saotome-kun!" Soun could always count on his friend to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Of course, everyone else either groaned for fumed over this typical exchange. 

            "Is no change for Shampoo," the purple haired beauty sighed. 

            "Of course," Mousse groused. 

            "At least now Ranchan is free to be a man again."

            Ranma-chan closed her eyes, and wondered if what she had learned about herself made all these declarations moot. She knew that, as Ranma, she would like to go back to being a man, but she was not the real Ranma. In a tired voice, she muttered, "I'm sure he'll be happy to hear that…"

            Fa Shen stiffened. Ranma-chan's comment had jogged his memory. He suddenly blurted out, "Ranma!" Everyone looked at him in curiosity. He looked at Ranma-chan, "When I woke up, I took back my ki. If the rest of the ki is gone, that means Ranma woke up too!"

            Ranma-chan considered that, while the rest looked confused, unable to follow what Fa Shen said. "He'll be in Ranko. Stuck as a girl. He won't even know Mom or Ryouga."

            "What are you two talking about?" Ukyo demanded. 

            "Did Ranko trade places with Airen?" Shampoo bolted to her feet. 

            Ranma-chan looked up at Fa Shen. He nodded and she considered the opportunity carefully. If she claimed to be Ranko, if she could predict Ranma well enough, he would not contradict her. "Uh, yeah… I suppose you could say I was never really Ranma. The real Ranma was trapped like Fa Shen, until we let him free," Ranma-chan informed the group wearily. "I think I am some kind of mix of both of them, or something. Fa Shen can explain it better than me. Anyway, I guess that makes me the real Ranko."

In a dark, secluded nook of a small park in down town Tokyo, a young couple lay naked and exhausted. The smaller of the two lay trembling in the other's arms, her mind racing in profound confusion. Ryouga held her in growing concern. In part of his mind, he was aware that as much as an hour had passed. It had been the most glorious hour of his life, and it was a wonder that the girl's screams had not brought someone to spoil it. He had no idea how to explain their absence to Nodoka, and suspected there was no way to disguise what they had done. But as great as that concern was, he was more troubled by the fact that Ranko had not spoken since the conclusion of their passion. Something had happened in the heat of the moment, which he had not noticed. Something to account for the fact that she seemed to be in shock. It was dark, but that had not kept Ryouga from realizing that her face was bathed in silent tears. He had kept his silence, just holding her and waiting for her to say or do something, but his concern had become too great. Hugging her close, he asked in a quiet voice. 

            "Do you want to talk about it?"

            The girl jerked and pushed away to look into his eyes. In a trembling voice she asked, "What the hell just happened? Who are you? What did you do to me?" There was both awe and terror in her eyes.

            Ryouga was stunned by her questions. Loud alarms rang in his head. Swallowing nervously, he dared, "D-do you… Do you know who you are?"

            "Ranma Saotome." 

            Ryouga stiffened. Had her mind snapped?

            Ranma was painfully aware of several things. The boy holding her was oddly familiar. From his reaction, he was not surprised when Ranma identified herself. Ranma could read body language very well, so it was more that, the boy knew who she was, but had expected a different answer. She returned to the thoughts she had been contemplating since her bizarre awakening. Things had made eerie sense up to a point, at least in dream logic; meeting the twin girls at Jusenkyo, being told he was cursed to become a girl, and learning that a year had passed he was not aware of. Dreams were like that. A short walk that took him to a place he knew could not be within a hundred miles of that part of China proved it had been a dream, even ignoring the cat. Jumping off a cliff to escape a dragon? Definitely a smart move in a dream. Getting lost in the clouds until he spotted one of the strange girls streaking towards him, and crashing into her only to explode into shards of memory, had been so confusing it had to be a dream. It had been impossible to grasp the memories that had crashed through his mind. In the same instant, he was overwhelmed by the sensations ripping through his mind. It took only a moment to recognize he had turned into a girl and her body was screaming with pleasure that overwhelmed her. It had been painfully obvious that the boy wrestling with her was the cause of the incredible sensation, so she let him continue, riveted in place and absolutely blown away. 

            "I've never felt anything like that before," she breathed in wonder. In spite of the terrible shame she had felt confronting her transformation, and realizing that at least the part about the curse from her dream was true, she felt good. Emotionally, she was so confused the tears had come automatically. The transformation, and the thought that she might also have lost a year of her life were a blow. Most of the tears were for the loss of her manhood, but in her mind that loss was solely linked to turning into a girl. She did not know what sex was, or the threat the act should have been to her manhood. The way she saw what had just happened, she had not been effected enough by the curse to give up fighting, and was confident enough in her manhood to wrestle with a boy. She had never seriously considered wrestling a real martial art, of course, and as far as she knew only the most ancient forms were practiced in the nude. Still, if the style made the combatants feel so wonderful, she could see why it would still be practiced to this day. "I had no idea that wrestling was that much fun," she smiled up at him. "You must know about my curse, right? I mean, if you didn't know I was really a guy, you probably would have been ashamed to wrestle with me!" 

            Ryouga gaped at her and shook his head. "Um. You sound a little out of it," Ryouga carefully said. "What's the last thing you can remember, Rank- Ranma?"

            Ranma blushed. "I was with my father on a training journey. He knocked me into a spring. I got turned into a girl… I'm a little hazy on everything after that." She frowned, she was still studying his face. Suddenly a light went off in her head, "Hey! I know you! We went to school together in Junior High! Uh… your name is… uh…" 

            "Don't strain your brain, Ranma," Ryouga scowled, growing angry as he started to put things together. Most of his anger was directed inward, driven by the thought that what they had done had shattered Ranko's mind. In spite of accepting her future as a girl, she had been a boy originally. 

            "Wait… I know this… I used to fight you for bread, and you have the worst sense of direction I have ever seen!" she grinned. She sat up and crossed her arms. "Ryouga Habiki! Man! It's great to see you again!"

            "You really don't remember," Ryouga sagged. 

            Ranma frowned. "I had this dream, some girl told me she had lived a year of my life. Something about bein' submerged when I was cursed. I see the cursed part is right, so… maybe it's true." It was a thought that made her sad. However, there was a discrepancy. "Um, if I was asleep and dreaming, why did you start wrestling with me? I mean, come on! Fightin' a guy while he's tryin' to sleep!? Isn't that kinda cheap!?"

            "You weren't asleep, Ranma," Ryouga sighed. He knew this was stupid, but it had to be said. "You were someone else and we were 'wrestling' because you wanted to… Ranko." He hoped it worked. He hoped it would snap her back to her right mind.

            Ranma blinked. "Ranko…?" With a sudden shriek, the memories Ranma had shoved aside with the help of that mind bending pleasure suddenly flooded forward. It took an instant to understand the course of his missing year, the recent events that threatened to strip away his manhood, and the final act where she gave it away. It took a great deal longer than that to regain the powers of speech. "No. Nonononono!" 

            Ryouga saw it all flash across her face. "I am sorry, Ranko. If I had known this would happen, I would not have…" he could not say it. He had tried to fight the temptation and failed. It was the koi rod all over again. The spell wore off and he had to watch as Ranma was destroyed by the realization of what he had done. His heart shattered, and that made it extremely easy to bow his head and murmur, "I am so sorry. If you want to kill me, I won't stop you."

            Ranma's head snapped up, her mind at war with itself. It was almost ridiculous, the part that was a girl in love with Ryouga was the part that understood what Ranma had lost. The part that was a boy proud of his manhood would not have understood the threat having sex as a girl was to his manhood. She could not know what she had lost without understanding what she had gained. Only by accepting the girl he had become could he recover the year he had lost. "Ryouga… I'd sooner kill myself. If I killed you, I'd have to. I don't understand what happened. I had a dream, it's really confusing, like… I suddenly didn't know what had happened after falling in the spring. But… now I am awake and I remember everything."

            Ryouga looked up. There was only one thing he could say. "I love you."

            Ranma smiled, "I think you proved that and then some."

            "What's happening to you? Are you Ranma or Ranko?"

            "I don't know. Maybe I passed out for a moment. Maybe I'm afraid that if I go back to being cursed, I'll want to be Ranma again. A man again," she shrugged. Unlike most dreams, this one had it's teeth sunk into her deep, and somewhere deep inside she had the feeling that she had been given something Ranma would never have wanted in exchange for something he had not realized he had lost. 

            "Do you? Want to be a man again?" Ryouga asked, starting to search for their clothes. 

            "The only time I've ever really been a girl is tonight, Ryouga. When that was my only option, it wasn't hard to do in the end. We both know I can't be Ranma, but… I don't know. Maybe for myself, I need to be able to be a guy. Not all the time, but… I think I do want the curse back. Would that… would we…?"

            Ryouga knew what she was asking. "Would I still love you if you were a guy sometimes? That depends on what kind of guy you are."

            Ranma looked down. Ryouga handed her dress over, and she began to get dressed. She still felt a little shell shocked. Her strange regression was disturbing, especially the sense of clinging to her original identity. Even as she shied away from thinking of herself as "Ranko" she had to think in the same way she had as "Ranko" to deal with this situation. If she regressed again, she might lose it completely. The man in her had to come to terms with the woman in her, or what she had done tonight would destroy her. As a martial artist, she had to be strong enough to face reality, even if it was totally unreal. With a rueful grin she wrinkled her nose. "If I had known sex was so messy, I might have changed my mind. My Mom's going to know what we did," she commented, as she tried to smooth her hair. 

            "If she asks…" Ryouga placed a torn piece of foil in her hand and sighed, "I didn't forget. You're not a virgin anymore, but you aren't going to be a mother." Ryouga finished getting dressed, and came over to help her. He was surprised at how well she was able to clean herself up. He took her hands. "Ranko. I do love you. If the only way I could keep you was to jump in the nyanniichaun, to be good enough for your guy side, I would."

            Ranma looked at him. That came as a shock.

            "I've always told you I thought your curse was better than mine."

            "Wouldn't you be afraid of losing your manhood?"

            "You seem to be proving that curse adds something without taking anything away. If you can still think of yourself as a guy, after tonight, I don't see anything for me to be afraid of," Ryouga shrugged. 

            Ranma nodded. Searching the ground, she asked, "Have you seen my panties? I can't seem to find them."

            "Yeah. I'm keeping them," Ryouga grinned. 

            Ranma snarled. "Fine. I need to get to a ladies room really quickly then." She slipped her shoes on and dragged the boy out of the clearing. Pausing at a different club, on their way back, she led him inside to do just that. The pain of their activity was easy to ignore, but the trace of bleeding was going to drive her nuts if she did not take care of it immediately. 


	29. The Worst Case Scenario

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Twenty-Nine: The Worst Case Scenario

Night had crystallized cool and clear over Tokyo and it's surrounding wards. Somewhere in the darkness, a clock struck ten deep resounding bells, signaling the hour most families retired to bed in preparation for another school or work day. Homes throughout Nerima grew still and dark, but one notorious household remained a turbulent whorl of activity. The group assembled at the Tendo Dojo were understandably shocked by the latest twist in the week's ordeal. Initial concern for the cursed teen's well-being had kept most of them from reacting to Cologne's off-hand revelation that Fa Shen had assumed full possession of the male reflection, but hearing the person they all tended to think of as the original Ranma declare that she was the true Ranko started an uproar. As this declaration came in the wake of Soun and Genma's reinstatement of the original engagement, the outburst began quite predictably.

            "What kind of non-sense are you blabbering, Boy!?"

            "Can it be!? Ranma's stuck with a girl's mind!?" Soun wailed. 

            "What Airen mean, not real Ranma?"

            "I told you I am not Ranma! I'm Ranko!" That in a tired croak. 

            "Do you hear that, Shampoo!? The one who defeated you truly is a girl! You are free from the Kiss of Marriage! We really can be together! Oh, Shampoo!" Mousse rushed forward and glomped Akane, who pounded him out into the back yard. 

            "Blind jerk!"

            "Ran-chan? Ranko is on a date with Ryouga…"

            "Weren't any of you listening!?" Fa Shen shouted. Everyone turned to look at him. He shoved forward next to Ranko and looked down at her, as Mousse dragged himself back inside. With a look, he promised to sort out the mess, since she was too weak to move, let alone argue with the crowd. "I am going to explain this one more time, so listen up!" Fa Shen growled, growing impatient. He proceeded to explain, in detail, what he had figured out and discovered in the dreamscape. He started with the struggle for dominance and continued through the truce Fa Shen and Ranma-chan had established to sort out the mess. He covered all the things they talked about and what they tried to wake up together. Then, he described the encounter with the embodiments of their fears, and how they came back to their starting point and freed the boy from the spring. "The last thing he remembered was being knocked in the spring by a panda wearing his father's gi," he asserted. "We questioned him, and I realized I could remember some things that happened between my death and my first awakening here. I actually remember when Ranma was cursed, and that I tried to… possess him, I guess, but we both got dragged down, like Ranma-chan and I."

            "You're saying that when Ranma was cursed he went into a trance like Ranma-chan did tonight?" Nabiki asked pointedly. Fa Shen nodded. "Okay, so, shouldn't Ranma have just drowned right then? Ranma-chan…"

            "Ranko."

            "…Ranko," Nabiki continued, frowning, "said something about being a mix of both you and Ranma. Until this week, 'Ranko' was Ranma. The one, the only, and no one had a clue about you. How do you explain that?"

            "What is the ultimate result of combining male and female?"

            "That is obvious, child," Cologne intercepted. "The creation of new life."

            "So what would happen, in a living organism, if a man's ki and a woman's ki are combined, and neither one can control the whole? And… what if the man and woman are actually the same person, the same soul?"

            Cologne nodded. She had suspected this about Ranma from the beginning, "A new person would be created, a gestalt of the two originals. So, until this evening, Ra… Ranko has actually been both of you. As for why she only presented herself as Ranma, I would think that he was in a stronger position than you during the fusion, so, when both of you were subsumed by Ranko, the character of Ranma's mind caused her to also submerge any trace she inherited of being you."

            Fa Shen nodded, "That was what I concluded too."

            "And now, because you and Ranma have awakened and reclaimed your ki, the gestalt is broken. If not for the ki invested in the curse, she would have ceased to exist. Because of it, she has become an independent being with the potential to exhibit the full potential of the gestalt without subsuming either of you," Cologne turned back to the cursed girl and shook her head. "If she survives long enough for her ki to fully regenerate, she will be a very powerful woman."

            "But… if that's true… my son is…" Genma was close to tears.

            "Trapped in a female body," Fa Shen sighed. 

            "Saotome-kun? Perhaps if you adopted Fa Shen…" Soun began. 

            "Akane, do you want to marry a girl trapped in a man's body?" Nabiki cut in loudly. Her face remained distantly curious as everyone else whipped around to stare at her, then Fa Shen. The boy was blushing furiously in shame and anger. Akane, sitting next to him, looked ready to kill her father. 

            "Ah, Tendo-kun," Genma sweated. "I think it would be more likely that my son would take advantage of this opportunity to get a nanniichaun curse. With the reverse of his old curse, he could actually be locked into male form and all our problems would be solved."

            "What about…?" Mousse spoke up.

            "If Mousse say one more time Shampoo kill female Ran… Ranko, you I kill!" Shampoo interrupted. She turned to look at Cologne for some kind of help or advice. She knew what Mousse was thinking, and her refusal to fulfill the kiss of death—especially now when Ranko was utterly vulnerable and the reflections safe from the mirror's curse—was damning. There had to be a way to keep Mousse from killing Ranko to trap Shampoo.

            "Ranko?" Cologne spoke up. The girl looked at her. Switching into Mandarin, the old woman continued. "What are the tenets of the Kiss of Death?"

            Ranko blinked and stared up at the ceiling. In fluent Mandarin she found herself quoting from memory, "The council of elders, in the wake of recognizing that female outsiders could represent a dangerous threat to the Tribe of Heroines, decreed that an aggressive policy was necessary to both strengthen and protect the tribe. For this purpose, the Kiss of Death was made a law. In the event that a woman warrior was defeated in combat by a female outsider, she was required to give her the Kiss of Death. Publicly, this is a promise to hunt the woman down, even to the ends of the Earth, and kill her. However," Ranko added thoughtfully, "the true purpose of the Kiss is three fold. It's first purpose is to establish whether the defeat was a fluke. If the outsider can be quickly defeated and incapacitated, she may be spared at the warrior's discretion and judged by the council of elders. If, however, the woman is truly skilled, the warrior has one year in which to succeed in executing the kiss.

            "It is a given that, since the woman did not kill the warrior in the initial combat, it would not be in her nature or code to kill an inferior opponent, thus, the true purpose of the Kiss of Death is to challenge a defeated warrior with a proven adversary against whom she must constantly improve and test her skills. Because the warrior's intent is lethal, the adversary is also driven to improve thus creating a self sustaining, accelerated training regimen. As the adversary is not aware of this, the ordeal is also considered a trial of her integrity. If, at the end of the year, she has demonstrated honor and restraint in defending herself, never responding to the warrior's assaults with crippling or lethal force, the warrior may conclude the Kiss of Death with a Kiss of Sisterhood, and invite the woman into the tribe, thus fulfilling the third purpose of the Kiss of Death. 

            "Only an adversary proven to be an enemy, or without honor, is to be slain. If she is revealed to be a man in female guise, the option of treating the Kiss as a Kiss of Marriage exists, as that too encompasses certain trials applicable to men," Ranko finished. The effort to recite all of it had exhausted her. In Japanese, she added, "I hope you don't have any other questions for a while. That one wore me out."

            "That is fine, Ranko," Cologne smiled. Turning to Mousse, she raised an eyebrow, "Does that answer your question, Mousse?"

            "Only an amazon would know all of that!" he protested in disbelief. 

            "He's not very quick, is he?" Fa Shen asked, scowling. 

            Cologne looked at Fa Shen and smacked her fist into her palm, "That reminds me. As a reincarnated—or in your case resurrected—amazon warrior, you are granted special permission to use the nyanniichaun to regain your rightful place." In order for the tribe to survive, it had been necessary to forbid any male amazon from using the spring to improve his status. As with any law, however, there was an exception, and fortunately Fa Shen qualified for it. 

            Fa Shen stared at her, "So, I don't have to stay a man?"

            "I'd be a fool to believe you would just because of the law, Fa Shen," Cologne smirked. "In some ways, you are as rebellious as your mother."

            Fa Shen suddenly looked stricken. "Mother! Oh, Cologne! What happened to my mother? I know she must be dead by now, but…"

            "I am sad to say I know very little about her after your death. What I do know is that your brother was the first to be cursed in your image. Ergot was always troubled by his attraction to Lo Shen. Apparently he sacrificed you so that he could resolve that problem, but the boy could not forgive him for turning him into a woman and locking his curse." Cologne noticed the fierce grin on Fa Shen's face at learning the fate of her nemesis. "Lo Shen escaped from the Musk, but was raped before seeking sanctuary from his mother. The council forbid her from bringing him into the tribe, so she took him and left before the baby was born. There are a few sparse reports of their activities, but after a few years the tribe lost track of her. We do not know what became of her after her last conflict with the Musk."

            "So. At least he was punished for betraying me," Fa Shen sighed. 

            "Speaking of mothers…" Ranko panted, marshalling her strength and forcing her body to sit upright, with a scream of agonizing effort. She paused for several long breaths, the center of everyone's attention. Balancing herself, cross-legged, she pulled her trembling hands into her lap and completed her thought, "Mom is gonna be here tonight. I can hardly move, so it'd be a good idea for me to get out of here right away." She spoke with determination and relief. She would take "hardly move" over "cannot move" any day. 

            "Actually, 'Ranko', since you are NOT Ranma, she isn't your mother, and you've got no reason to hide, now do you?" Genma snarled. He received a number of ugly stares, but the simple fact was, the way this whole situation was playing out was leaving a very nasty taste in his mouth. His conscience had been eating away at him for two days now, on account of letting his fear and desires tempt him to begin the process of undermining the manhood of the child he still thought of as his son. He was having a hard time assimilating the notion that Fa Shen proposed. To him, it was as if his son had rejected both his family and his manhood, and Genma himself had pushed "her" to it. 

            Ranko read that in his face and growled back, "Closest thing I have to a mother. If you think it's a hot idea to have her face TWO Rankos…" She shrugged and sighed, "My curse is locked. Might even be possible to convince Mom that I've got a twin who's pretending to be me to steal Ryouga away from me while I am 'sick' or something. 'S just… I am Ranko an' I am never gonna pretend to be anyone else ever again."

            "Why do you insist on this?" Genma pleaded, backing down a bit. 

            Ranko shook her head, "I didn't expect you to understand. Fa Shen absorbed the part of me that could BE Ranma. 'S gone and I don't know how to get it back."

            "If that's true, you shouldn't be able to be Ranko either!"

            "You don't get it. I didn't find the part of me that was Ranko until after the last visit to the mirror. The only way she could be Ranko was if she tapped into Copy-chan, the female side of me."

            "But that's Ranko!" Genma was feeling a bit lost.

            "No. The female side of me came from Fa Shen," Ranko sighed. 

            "Now I am confused," Akane blurted, frowning. 

            "Don't you remember who was the first to remember Fa Shen?"

            "Uh…"

            "That is a good point, child," Cologne observed, thoughtfully. 

            "But," Nabiki interrupted, "If you gave up your male and female sides like that, what does that make you?"

            "Both," Ranko winced. "Just the way I started."

            "But you're telling us you're a girl!" Genma shouted.

            "I don't remember saying what I was," Ranko frowned. "I just said I was Ranko. Why is it no one pays any attention to what I actually say? Why do you always jump to conclusions and think I said something I didn't"

            There was a round of silence as the girl frowned. 

            "How can you be both?" Kasumi asked in curiosity. 

            "I dunno. I guess it's like being ambidextrous," Ranko shrugged. 

            "You're ambisexual?" Nabiki laughed. 

            "Sure. Why not?" Ranko smirked. 

            "That mean, still can be Shampoo Airen?" The purple haired girl looked from between Ranko and Cologne in confusion. Cologne had all but declared the girl was an amazon warrior. By default she was supposed to be a girl. It made her immune to the Kiss of Death, but if she was also male, the Kiss of Marriage might still apply. 

            "I believe this situation is without precedent," Cologne announced after a moment's thought. "I believe this will have to come before the council for resolution. However, with the curse locked the point is moot, and since it will take a visit to the Musk to undo, it would not be too difficult to return home for that purpose." Ranko and Shampoo both sighed, if for entirely different reasons. Ukyo, who had been lost in her own thoughts for the most part, burst to her feet and stomped outside. 

            A moment later, Akane stood and wandered after her. "Ukyo?"

            Ukyo whipped around to stare at her. "What do you want!?"

            Akane flinched. She struggled to mute her temper and collect her thoughts. "It hurts, doesn't it?" she finally whispered.

            Ukyo's eyes narrowed, then her mask came down, "I suppose you would understand. A little. I don't know what to do, what to think. I'm engaged to Ranma. I have been for years. I love him," she groaned. "If all of this is true, though, the person I fell in love with isn't Ranma! Ranma has been out of the picture this whole year! I always thought Shampoo had the weakest claim, since she came into the picture this summer. Suddenly," she snapped her fingers for emphasis, "she's the only one with a legitimate claim to the person we all have been fighting over!" 

            "I thought it might be something like that," Akane frowned. 

            "Our engagements are with Genma's son. They can't be applied to Ranko. Dammit, Akane, I couldn't even think of shifting my interest to the male copy! You had that forced on you, but I was staying true to my heart. The same thing will keep me from pursuing the 'real' Ranma now!" Ukyo sobbed, tears finally beginning to come out. 

            Akane looked down. She could not help but remember the end of her date. The kiss. Nor could she forget that the boy who had kissed her was gone forever. One look from Fa Shen had told her that. In a sense, that had been a relief, because it ended the conflict created in that moment with her feelings for… Ranko. It was almost hilarious. She had fallen into the same trap as her rivals. She had fallen in love with someone who had not even known who she was. It had not been until that person began to come out of her shell that Akane had even dared to face her feelings. It had eased her mind to learn that the boy she had kissed, was just a projection of Ranko. The part of her that had tried to be Ranma. It made her feel like her heart had not strayed dangerously. She had not betrayed her heart. 

            "You want to give up the engagement. You want to keep fighting Shampoo for him. It doesn't even matter that he's as much a 'her' as a 'him'," Akane commented, putting the feelings they both had into words. 

            "That's exactly it!" Ukyo cried. "And it proves what a hypocrite I am! All this time using honor to claim him, but the minute 'honor' conflicts with what I want, I'm ready to throw it out the window to keep chasing Ranko!"

            Akane smiled a tiny smile. "It kind of changes things, though, doesn't it? I mean, it's hypocritical to shrug off the engagements, but using them to manipulate Ranm- Ranko wasn't any better, was it?"

            Ukyo found herself taking a careful look at Akane. She looked tiny. Standing in demure shame, hands clasped in front of her as she stared at her feet. The okonomiyaki chef stiffened and glared. "You're not just guessing how I feel. You're telling me you feel the same way. I thought you hated your engagement. I thought you hated 'Ranma'!"

            "I do hate the engagement. I hate the power it has over me. I hate the power it could give him over me," Akane admitted. She took a deep breath and looked up. "I also hate seeing it hanging over him. I hate the idea of being forced to be with someone, of ending up in a loveless marriage. I never hated Ranma. I hated the fact that 'Ranma' got in the way of him being who she really is."

            Ukyo gaped at her. "What are you going to do?"

            "I have no idea, Ukyo. No idea at all."

While Ukyo and Akane wandered outside, debates and arguments continued to rage around Ranko. It was unbelievable how weak she was, she reflected, as she focused on sitting upright. In between outbursts, she quietly begged for something to eat and drink from Kasumi. The eldest Tendo daughter eagerly went to fetch something from the kitchen, grateful to be able to do something besides listen to the chaos. After heating some leftovers, she set a small place at the table and helped the trembling girl over to her seat. Seeing Ranko barely able to hold her chopsticks, Kasumi proceeded to handle feeding her as well, focusing intently on the task of helping her get her strength back up. Ranko gave her a grateful smile and quietly suggested Kasumi remind Fa Shen he needed to be gone before Nodoka arrived. Without leaving her place beside Ranko, Kasumi waved the neo-boy over and delivered the message. Somewhere in the confusion, Dr. Tofu had quietly excused himself, and made his way to the door. Fa Shen rushed out after him. Unnoticed to everyone else, Mousse slipped away after them. 

            Fa Shen caught up to the doctor at the corner. "Dr. Tofu?"

            "Yes, Ra… excuse me, Fa Shen. What may I do to help you?"

            "I remember the last year as Ranma," he began, nervously, falling into step and urging Tofu to keep walking. "It's some side effect of how I woke up. I seem to remember you offering Ranma-chan, er, Ranko, some help with, ah, gender issues."

            Tofu glanced sideways and nodded. "I did indeed. If you were wondering if I might be able to help you, I assure you I am more than willing to offer some counseling."

            "Do you think, ah, you have some time tonight?"

            "I think, considering your situation, that would be very wise," he smiled. Seeing that there was some other thought on the boy's mind he asked, "Is there perhaps something else you were wondering about?"

            "I don't want to impose, but… for all I know about the people around here, I don't actually know anyone. From what I do know, I am not sure who I can trust even for something as simple as providing a place to sleep tonight. As a healer…"

            "I trade on being trustworthy," Tofu finished. He laughed gently. "I can't say I have much to offer. An exam table of the floor in my room, neither of which are terribly comfortable, but if that is satisfactory, I have no problems putting you up for the night."

            "Thank you, doctor," Fa Shen sighed. 

            "No trouble at all. Now, when you are ready, just come to the clinic and we can sit down and talk before I go to bed." Seeing the boy about to ask the obvious question, Tofu pointed behind them, "It seems there is someone who wishes to speak with you. Take your time." 

            Fa Shen stopped and looked around behind them. A moment later, Mousse emerged from the shadows and approached. Tofu bowed to him and exchanged good nights before continuing on his way. Fa Shen stared at the amazon boy as he approached.

            "That doctor has extraordinary perception," Mousse commented in his native tongue, coming to a stop before Fa Shen. 

            "What do you want?" Fa Shen replied in mandarin, well aware of the treacherous aspects of Mousse's nature, courtesy of his inherited memories. 

            "I wish to speak to you as a man of the amazon tribe."

            "You will not get any assistance from me in your plot to win that girl through Ranko's death."

            "That is no longer even a possibility, and we both know it."

            "So. What is there for us to discuss, as 'men'?"

            Mousse straightened and met Fa Shen's eye. "It is customary among men, when one perceives an opportunity in matters concerning the other man's family, to make his intentions known, to seek blessings and solicit aid in pursuing his objective. Even though you are a woman at heart, you are the closest thing Ranko has to a brother. Her only 'relative' who is also recognized as an amazon."

            Fa Shen was stunned speechless. After a moment, he picked up his jaw and shouted, "You intend to challenge Ranko!? After plotting to kill her!?"

            "Yes. Obviously, though the circumstances have changed, what I proposed remains an obstacle I cannot overcome without your assistance," Mousse crossed his arms. Unlike the passion blinded fool of Ranma's memory, Mousse proceeded with cold calculation. "I was not able to act against her, and being ignorant of certain things I was not entirely out of line in considering such a course of action. Besides, attempting to kill someone is not an unforgivable insult. How that plan would have affected my intended, Shampoo, was. With all prospects of love shattered, I can only restore my honor through traditional means. That being, to wed an amazon of high stature. Apart from Shampoo, and yourself should you regain your womanhood, there is no greater 'prize' than Ranko."

            Fa Shen scowled, "You know damn well you may not issue a challenge to a warrior who has been injured or incapacitated by prior circumstances. She must be of sound body and mind!"

            "I can wait until she is ready. I can actually use the time to train in preparation," Mousse shrugged. 

            "There has to be more to this. Something you're not saying, and you can be sure I will do all I can to hinder you if you are not completely honest and up front with me. So, what is this really all about?"

            "Simple. Shampoo's Airen is now an amazon woman. I am legitimately able to 'court' her in battle. If I defeat her I will have an equal claim to Shampoo's Airen. Thus, I will have established myself as Shampoo's peer, and be considered worthy to challenge her again. It is essential that I do this before the council has a chance to rule on Shampoo's marriage, and Ranko's official status. Her 'dual' gender has to be ratified by the council for Shampoo's marriage to be considered legitimate and binding."

            Fa Shen pondered for a moment. "So, you're not seriously after Ranko. You want to use Ranko to maneuver Shampoo into marriage with you?" It was an outrageous plan, but if it worked, it could actually free Ranko from Shampoo entirely. He knew damn well that Ranko did not want to be married to her. Would she be willing to risk marriage to Mousse in the hope that he would succeed in capturing Shampoo? She had taken as great a chance to protect the Tendo sisters from marriage to Picolet Chardin. 

            "That is my plan. Will you help me?"

            Fa Shen scratched the back of his head. "I'll think about it."

Ranma had taken her time sorting things out in the ladies room. A tampon dispenser mounted on the wall had provided a solution to the bleeding caused by her recent indulgence. The time spent in the privacy of a stall cleaning herself up and inserting it gave her a chance to reflect on what she had done. The memories she had awakened to put everything that was happening into a perspective, but as the flush of pleasure wore off, there remained a jarring sense of dislocation. She could not shake the sensation of having been thrust into a situation she never anticipated and which she had been utterly incapable of averting. More than once she had to shake herself out of a near catatonic state. There was no denying what had happened, and no point in allowing it to destroy her. She was a young man subjected to every aspect of womanhood short of childbirth, and even that could still confront her. Apart from what seemed a willful descent into femininity, the memories she had gained made it clear that only extenuating circumstances had compelled her to abandon her manhood. As she exited the stall and proceeded to wash her face, she concluded that even embracing her womanhood had not negated or diminished her self image. She smirked into the mirror. Sex was better than ice cream, and from her memories the promise of ice cream had made her eager to exploit her female form. 

            With a final check, to make sure she had eradicated any traces of her deflowering, she proceeded outside to confront the remaining problem. Ryouga. He was standing outside the door to the men's room. As she looked at him, she considered her feelings. For her, masculinity and femininity had largely been considered a state of mind. The feelings she had for him put her in a state of mind that made her a woman. Plain and simple. It did not seem to change who she was, but it made her inescapably aware of what she was. It was not in her personality to be ultra feminine, but, there was no question she could be female to the core, and without doubt interested in being a very sexy female. She feared that damned her in the eyes of Nodoka, should she ever discover this side of her son. 

            "Ryouga, did you get cleaned up?" she asked. 

            "Yes. Thankfully there's just the one door. I did just what you suggested, and stopped as soon as I stepped back out," he blushed faintly. He had pissed off a number of guys by refusing to budge an inch, forcing them to squeeze past him to go in or out of the restroom.

            "Okay," she leaned close to him and sniffed carefully. Smelling only soap, she smiled. "Good, so, when we go back to my Mom, we just say that you got lost and it took me a while to find you and bring you back to the club. Got it?"

            "No problem, Rank- Ranma," he was still disturbed by the fact that she had reverted to her original name, though she pointed out it was only necessary in private, since she had to keep up the act for Nodoka. Ranma ignored his slip this time and led him outside and down the street towards the club where they had abandoned Nodoka. Before entering, she turned to him. 

            "Ryouga," she started, staring into his eyes. She bit her lip. She damned her feelings, the confusion they caused. "I really enjoyed what we did. I can barely believe we did it, and it definitely blew my mind. It seems like too much has happened too fast, and I feel like I can't let go of being a guy. The whole year suddenly seems like a dream, but it's a nice dream. Really chaotic, and totally unreal, but fun too. I don't know if this was love or lust, 'cuz I've never really felt either before. I can never forget what we've said and done together tonight, but I honestly don't know how I'll feel tomorrow. I don't know if bein' able to be a guy again will change me. I know that bein' Ranma again could." She cut herself off, before she said something that could not be taken back. Ryouga was already looking terrible from what she said. Taking a deep breath, "All I am tryin' to say is, I can't control what happens tomorrow. I don't want to hurt you. I don't want you to be hurt. Do you understand what I am getting' at?"

            Ryouga thought for a moment before nodding. "I am almost not surprised that this could end as suddenly as it began. I never expected what happened tonight to happen. I guess it is kind of like a dream. For a little while there, you were a different person, but she seems to thrive when there is no hope of you being a man." He sighed heavily, feeling his heart continue to break. It had been inevitable from the moment she got off the phone. "If you can find it in you not to hate me for who you were tonight, I promise not to hate you for who you are tomorrow."

            Ranma felt a gnawing ache. "Ryouga, I don't think I could ever explain this to Mom, but… because of you, because of tonight, I will never be afraid of losing myself to my female side again. I want to tell you I love you, and promise that I will love you, because I can remember realizing how much I love you tonight. I don't understand what happened. What we did. It feels like something snapped in my mind, and suddenly it's like I wasn't even awake this past year. It's scary, especially with that weird dream I had. 

            "I should love you, and it scares me that I don't feel anything but confusion," she pulled herself close, allowing the fear she had been feeling to show in her face and voice. "If nothing else messes with my head too much, I think I'll be able to sort it out, start feeling things again. I'd do what we just did again in a heart beat, because I am not afraid at all. I just want a little time for the numbness to wear off."

            "Alright, Ranma," Ryouga smiled. "Alright, I won't let it tear me apart and fall into a pit of despair. If this is what it's going to be like for a while, it's still a lot more than I ever dreamed of. It sounds like you're okay now with being a girl, but you… It would hurt you to give up being a guy. If you need to be both, well, I'd rather join you than force you to pick just one."

            "Thanks, Ryouga. You don't know how much that means to me."

            Deciding that was the best she could do for damage control, she led him inside and approached the table where Nodoka waited in carefully constrained agitation. Moving with exaggerated exhaustion, she smiled and greeted her mother, dragging Ryouga in her wake. Ryouga had little trouble looking distantly embarrassed as Ranma proceeded to tell their cover story. Over the course of several minutes of animated conversation, the suspicion that haunted the woman's eyes gradually subsided. She dropped a couple pointed questions, but Ranma fielded them surprisingly well. Ryouga smirked. If the idiot would ever consider applying her acting ability and soul of ice technique to card games she would be unbeatable. Since there was no hand of cards involved, her deception was an astonishing success. 

            Because Nabiki had emphasized the need to keep Nodoka away until late, Ranma recalled, fighting the dissociation of her memories to keep the present in perspective, she threw herself into dancing with Ryouga. Ironically, the sudden emotional distance only helped to assuage Nodoka's suspicions as she observed the pair. Ryouga seemed a bit calmer, but every bit as love sick as before, while Ranko, as she continued to identify the girl, seemed to have snapped out of her amorous state. 

            "It looks like my advice did some good after all," she murmured to herself, watching them dance in the crowd. "She seems to be less sure of her feelings. Less demonstrative. Mmmm… as irreverent and energetic as ever."

            Deciding that it would take much more than one night on the town to polish the incorrigible tomboy, she sat back and plotted out what to do over the next few weekends to correct the inadequacies of her upbringing. That kept her mind busy through the remainder of the evening and the train ride home. As Nodoka had planned, the two were too exhausted by the time they got back to the dojo to contemplate any kind of mischief. It was a wonder they were still awake as they stumbled to the front door. In spite of their lassitude, the greeting that met them at the door shook Ranma and Ryouga into full alertness. 

            "Oh, good! You're all home," Kasumi chirped, smiling over an obvious look of tired concern. "Ranneko, your sister arrived. Why didn't you tell us Ranko was sick? Does Ryouga know you filled in for her on her date?"

            "Wha- Huh?" Ranma gaped.

            "RanNEKO?" Ryouga turned to stare at Ranma in disbelief.

            "Excuse me? Did you say sister… Ranko is… I don't understand," Nodoka was staring at the girl Kasumi had just called Ranneko. Was it possible…?

            "Oh, Mrs. Saotome! You didn't know Ranko has a twin sister? It's sort of funny, actually, since she's come over her occasionally, pretending to be Ranko," Kasumi quickly filled in. "They managed to keep it a complete secret for months. Quite a practical joke, if," she leveled a chiding look at Ranma, "somewhat improper."

            "You are not Ranko?" Nodoka stared at Ranma, who swallowed nervously. "Ryouga? Did you  know about this?"

            Ranma's eyes rolled wildly as she tried to figure out what was up. She thought back to the call and guessed that it had been deemed to dangerous to move Ranma-chan. Licking her lips, she thought fast and allowed all her confusion and alarm, as well as some genuine embarrassment to taint her features. "I guess you've caught me. It's just a harmless joke! I mean, we're practically the same person, so, ah… it's really easy to fool people!"

            Ryouga considered this, and decided to answer honestly, "Actually, I found out recently about them being twins. You don't want to know what kind of confusion they caused."

            Nodoka considered his reply, but it seemed honest. With a hint of suspicion, she studied 'Ranneko' and thought about some of their private conversations. "So, you thought you were on a date with Ranko?" she asked Ryouga. He nodded. Nodoka grabbed the girl and dragged her outside for a few words. "Ranneko… stop shuddering, I'm not mad at you, just confused!"

            "Sorry, Auntie," Ranma was cursing inside over the name she had suddenly been stuck with. 

            "Tell me straight, were you being honest about your feelings tonight? Do you love Ryouga?" 

            Ranma frowned. "I believed it when I said it. I've been thinking it over trying to decide if… well… I've stumbled on some doubts."

            "But you knew he had feelings for Ranko?" A nod. "And you decided to take advantage of her illness to see if you could get some where with him?" A more hesitant nod. She shook her head.

            "I wanted to figure my feelings about a lot of things out."

            "Why have you concealed your identity from me all this time?"

            "I am sorry, it wasn't intentional. I'm just used to pretending to be Ranko. I mean no disrespect."

            "I have never understood what possessed twins to play such games. You are asking for a lot of trouble, especially if you start swapping boyfriends this way!" Nodoka was not amused. She dragged the girl back inside, and made her apologize to Ryouga. 

            Ranma bowed her head. It was funny that the circumstances had left her able to make almost entirely honest answers, so it made taking this sudden lecture a lot less upsetting. It was a good plan, considering she had not been informed in the slightest what was going on. In a low voice, she asked, "Would it be alright if I went in and checked on Ranko real quickly? I'll come back and talk about this if you want."

            "I have only one more question. Is she the 'sick friend' Ranma was supposed to be taking care of tonight?"

            Ranma did not know how to answer. The truthful answer was of course yes. If she said that, however, Nodoka would want to know where he was and why he had abandoned the girl. She glanced at Kasumi, who nodded almost imperceptibly. Ranma nodded at last, and sighed, "She is."

            Nodoka sighed. "Go check on your sister, but hurry. I have some more questions to ask you." She shooed Ranma back inside. Turning back to Kasumi, she asked, predictably, "Is my son still taking care of her?"

            Kasumi smiled sadly, "No. He left her here for us to look after while he ran an errand. She needs something to help her get back her strength."

            "I see. Is he expected back soon?"

            "Well, apparently what Ranko needs is, um, rather difficult to acquire."

            "So he could be gone for days, then?"

            "I am sorry, Auntie."

            "I will say this for my son, Kasumi, he does manage to keep rather busy. From some of the stories I've heard, he can't sit still for a moment without some challenge or emergency or the demands of his Art dropping on top of him. I've never heard of someone forced to deal with so many demands on his attention," Nodoka wandered into the Tea Room shaking her head in bafflement. 


	30. Manly Obligations

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Thirty: Manly Obligations

In spite of the fact that it was almost midnight, no one in the Tendo Dojo appeared to be inclined towards bed. Ranma spotted Soun and Genma, in panda form, scowling over a game of shogi that had not even been started yet. Nabiki had the table covered in travel brochures and what appeared to be detailed files on the Kunos and their family assets, scribbling madly through calculations and muttering about the relative cost of commercial travel and bribes sufficient to allow a privately owned jet passage through China. Oddly, Cologne was at her elbow pointing out the location of air strips in Qinghai Province. The pair of them looked up as Nodoka and Ryouga followed Ranma into the room, led by Kasumi. Without a word, they cleared the table and excused themselves. Ranma shrugged and followed the two upstairs, in search of "Ranko". Through the open door of the guest room, she spotted her sitting in Akane's arms, who served as a back rest holding Ranko up right. In front of them, Shampoo was supporting a book in her lap and flipping the pages while Ranko read the text. Ukyo was off to the right, holding a drink with a straw, offering it occasionally for Ranko to drink. 

            "Enjoying all the attention, 'Ranko'?" Ranma teased, entering the room.

            "Ranma. Close the door," Ranko snapped her head up and ordered. 

            Frowning, Ranma did so. "I thought I was supposed to be Ranko," she challenged, looking for an explanation. She came forward and knelt across from Ukyo. Peering at the book in Shampoo's lap, she frowned. It was written in Chinese. Most of the symbols could be related to Kanji, but the result made little to no sense. Looking up at her twin, she frowned suspiciously, "Don't tell me you're Fa Shen."

            "No. But more of her memories are coming to me," she sighed, leaving the confusion that was causing her unmentioned. "The reason I am Ranko is because you are Ranma," she addressed the first question. "I've given up everything that was not mine, so you should be happy to have that back all to yourself."

            Ranma paused. "Do you wanna explain that?"

            "You mean you don't remember waking up?"

            Ranma paled. That question stabbed through the wall of a psychic hurricane deep into the eye of calm preserving Ranma's sanity. Her instincts still insisted that she had arrived in Jusenkyo a few hours ago, got knocked into a spring and woke up to evening in the heart of Tokyo. Her first experience in her cursed form, making love with Ryouga. At the same time, her head was full of memories detailing almost a year building up to that moment. She clung to those memories desperately, needed them to preserve her sanity. It was so much easier to accept that actually going through with it, actually having sex, had triggered some kind of regression to the event that made it possible. An indication that she could not abandon her manhood. So, she had fought the strange dysphoria, denied her instincts. Ranko's question cut right through all of that. Ranma remembered waking up, helpless, with a boy she could barely remember fucking her. Somehow, Ranko knew about that? 

            "What would you know about that!?" Ranma demanded as a deep, burning flush darkened her face. The surprise on everyone's faces warned her too late that, whatever Ranko had meant, it had not been precisely what she feared. Her obvious embarrassment roused immediate suspicion. 

            "There something you wanna let us in on, Ran-chan?" Ukyo grinned.

            "You do remember us pulling you out of that spring, right?"

            Ranma glared at Ukyo and turned to Ranko, nodding hesitantly. Ranko knew about the dream. Not what happened AFTER she awoke. Maybe Ranma was right still. Maybe she had blacked out and somehow fell into synch with the entranced Ranma-chan. Maybe that was what triggered her regression. Clinging to that hope, Ranma addressed the question. "I had this strange dream. Ryouga and I were… uh… well, you know how we, uh… get into fights. Um. I, ah… musta gotten knocked out or somethin' and that's when I had the dream. I still don't know how you can know about that…"

            "Is good you not amazon womans! You let get knocked out by Lost Boy, he be you Airen now!" Shampoo laughed. When Ranma proceeded to blush even darker, with a surprised look on his face, the others joined in and laughed until they could not breathe. Just as Shampoo recovered, she added, "You no be careful, next thing know, you get knocked UP by Lost Boy! Then in really big mess!" Shampoo fell over laughing. 

            Akane fought for sanity and snapped, "Geez, Shampoo! Go easy on the guy! It's bad enough he's stuck as a girl at the moment, there's no need to terrify him!" She turned a reassuring look on Ranma, and was startled by how spooked she looked. "Are you alright, Ranma?"

            "I want to know what the hell is going on!"

            "Ranma," Ranko interrupted, wiping her eyes dry. She had laughed so hard she started crying. Shaking her head, she returned to the point, "What I was going to say was, it wasn't a dream. Your mind has been submerged since you fell in the spring before last summer. I guess it's harder for you to tell your memories of the past year are mine than it was for Fa Shen. I know what you 'dreamed' 'cuz I was there too." She proceeded to explain what had happened to Fa Shen and herself, and what she presumed happened to Ranma. Ranma noted instantly that this shattered the plan she had been told over the phone. She could not join with Ranko; she would not regain the ability to become a man. She was locked in stunned silence as Ranko explained the theory of who she was and where she had come from. "I had no idea that waking both of you up could have killed me, I just didn't want to leave you buried there."

            Ranma had gone very pale. Her instincts were screaming in agreement with Ranko and Fa Shen's logic. Her denial crumbled. Once again, her mind tried to shut down, as it had when she was cleaning up after… The trauma was beyond her grasp. The pleasure, greater than anything the boy had ever known. With a heroic effort, she struggled to remain coherent and try to understand what was going on. After a long silence, she spoke. "So, what you are saying is, everything I remember from the past year came from you. I got them from a 'projection' of you, so all her thoughts and feelings… they belong to you, not me?" she demanded in a strained voice. 

            Ranko nodded. "Yes. Just like everything I can remember before drowning or falling in the spring belong to Fa Shen and you." She was going to say something more, but Ranma seized up. She tightened and shook violently for several moments as she fought for control of her mind. Then, she simply sagged and keeled over backwards to stare at the ceiling. "Are you okay?"

            "Up until this week, you believed you were me," Ranma had found a way to cope, searching through inherited memories and finding the overwhelming majority to be compatible with her self image. "You had no clue you could be anyone else. Except for some trouble rememberin' things I would have remembered quicker, you thought and did and said everything exactly like I would." They were statements of observation, but it sounded like she wanted someone to agree with her. 

            "I have to assume that. I had to have your identity stripped away from me to even begin to be any different," Ranko put carefully. Ranma crossed her arms and stared up for a little longer, before sitting upright. 

            "I guess I can live with it." Ranma sighed, looking years older suddenly. The shock was terrible. Numbing. Ranma had lost her manhood and almost a year of her life. The memories of a person who had thought and acted just like she would have, were a pale substitute. Even if they gave her the benefit of that year, and provided a way to deal with her present form. She had to accept them, of course. She needed them. The condition and circumstances she had inherited her body in could not be altered. It was conceivable, given the same circumstances, she would have made the same "sacrifice" as the "projected" Ranko. Unable to deny she had enjoyed her ruin, she would just have to learn to deal with it. 

            Pushing all of that aside, she returned to Ranko's problem. It was a nice distraction from her own problems. She took a moment to sort things out. "So, your curse is locked, and you're hovering on the brink of death. I suppose everyone else knows I'm the real Ranma, so Pops probably has some scheme cooked up to restore my manhood and push ahead with marrying me and Akane?" she quickly postulated, giving Akane a cautious, curious look. There was a round of nods. Ranma sighed. "What's it gonna take to fix you, Ranko?"

            "I'm looking for ways to regenerate ki. I need to be back to full strength to close myself off from the mirror. I can't unlock my curse until then or the next change could erase me," she shuddered. She pointed at the books, "I'm looking at the bit about the Chaunshontsuniichan right now. Somehow that curse creates two bodies, each with as much ki as the original. Obviously, there's a way to draw ki directly from the soul, so I am trying to figure out how and charge myself back up."

            "That actually makes sense," Ranma tilted her head in thought. Going over what she knew of ki, she quickly became distracted. She could feel how she was forced to access her new memories, just to participate in this conversation, and how each time she did she strengthened her connection to them. The boy she had been a year ago had already been irreversibly changed. Unable to avoid that, she tried not to fight it. At least she had only a year of such memories to cope with. Ranko apparently had two lifetimes, short as they were. Rather than bring that up, she picked up a question that had been on her mind coming upstairs. "What's up with Nabiki and the old mummy?"

            "Emergency expedition to Jusenkyo, get boy and girl curse for Ranma and Fa Shen," Shampoo informed soberly. 

            Ranma felt a sudden wash of relief. If such a plan did not go completely awry, there was hope of being a man again. She could climb out of the pit she had landed in, eradicate the weakness that undermined her manhood. She hoped being male offered something to counter the irresistible temptation of intercourse as a girl. She could not conceal her eagerness as she challenged, "Seriously!?"

            "Our father's insisted on taking care of the two of you immediately," Akane nodded. "Nabiki thinks she can con Kuno into letting us use his family's private jet, and Cologne knows who to contact for permits to fly directly to her home province. All three of you are going, but… Ranko can't come back until she has recovered enough to have her curse unlocked, and she has to visit the Musk for that." Akane sighed, "Unfortunately, none of the rest of us can go with you."

            "Why not?" Ranma frowned. 

            "The jet can only carry so many people, Ranchan!"

            "Who needs a jet?"

            "Huh?"

            "Why can't we shove everyone into the compact mirror and have Mousse fly us all there? Doesn't he sometimes carry messages that way for Cologne?"

            Shampoo smacked her fist into her palm, "Is true! Mousse do all time!"

            "Sometimes you frighten me," Akane gaped, staring at Ranma.

            "Feelin's mutual," Ranma smirked. They knew each other that well, but technically they had just met. Ranma had to laugh. It was better than screaming. Akane stared at her in confused annoyance, eyes narrowed, as she roared hysterically. When she calmed down, she felt a lot better, but decided not to explain what had struck her as so funny. Instead, she turned to the person who made the "joke" possible. She leaned forward and put her hand on top of Ranko's as she said, "Don't worry, Ranko. We'll get you fixed up!" At the same time Ranko stiffened in surprise. "What is it?"

            Ranko took her hand back and began to move her arms, slowly and steadily through part of a kata. "Wow. What did you do, Ranma?"

            "I didn't do nothin'! I swear!" she waved her hands in instant denial. 

            "What is it Ranko?" Akane shook the smaller girl. 

            "When she touched me, I got a sudden rush of energy!" she stared at Ranma, and touched her again. "Huh. Nothing this time… It was sorta like you had a charge of energy built up around you, or inside of you and…" She shifted her attention inwards. She nodded gently, "Somehow you had some excess ki around you and it flowed into me when you touched me! Whatever it was, raised my ki level a bit, enough to get rid of the shakes. Ranma, can you think of anything you've done that would let you build up a charge like that!?"

            Ranma blinked slowly. "Maybe our ki is close enough that you could siphon some of it off?" she suggested. Her mind was trying to do that odd shutting itself down thing again. 

            Ranko shook her head, "No, if that was the case, I'd have felt that earlier when Fa Shen touched me." Ranko thought back. She had been pretty numb at first, and had not noticed it at the time, but Fa Shen had casually touched her several times for comfort, support and curiosity. If there had been any ki transfer she would certainly have noticed it! "It has to be something you've done recently, since you woke up."

            Ranma swallowed, in sudden panic. In search of anything "unusual" she had done, there was one overwhelmingly large suspect that immediately reared forth. Her skin chilled and prickled as she thought of it. At the same time she was shaking her head in denial. 

            "Damn!" Ranko looked down. 

            "Ranma?" Akane studied her worriedly. "Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."

            "Wha-what? I mean… No. I need to- I have to talk to Ryouga… and-  and my Mom."

            "That was odd," Ukyo muttered as Ranma ran out of the room. 

            "Well, maybe we should tell Nabiki and Cologne about Ranma's idea?" Akane proposed, trying to keep her growing concern out of her voice. Ukyo shrugged and got up. She skipped out the door and down the hall to Nabiki's room and returned a moment later with the middle Tendo daughter and the amazon matriarch. Akane quickly repeated Ranma's idea to them. After they recovered from the surprise and embarrassment of overlooking that option, they huddled around Ranko and quickly considered the plan. 

Ranma rushed downstairs and into the Tea Room, her mind awhirl. The instant she heard about the planned trip to Jusenkyo, she had silently resolved to avoid any and all temptations to be a girl. Unlike Ranma-chan, she had no rival in their trio for the identity of Ranma. She could understand the other girl's reasons for claiming the identity of Ranko. It was perfect for someone who was a fusion of Ranma and Fa Shen. In an odd way, Ranma could almost think of Ranko as their daughter. That feeling had inspired her promise to help fix the girl. If what she suspected was true, the only way she would be able to keep that promise was to give in to her greatest female temptation. She burst into the room and stared at Ryouga. Nodoka looked up at her, over the brim of her tea cup. Before the woman could swallow and speak, Ranma stormed over to Ryouga and hauled him to his feet. "I need to speak with you about something. Now."

            "Huh?" Ryouga caught his balance.

            "Ranneko," Nodoka cleared her throat and set down her cup. "I am still waiting to discuss some things with you."

            Ranma glanced at her. "This will just take a moment. Can you please wait a little longer? This is important," she declared in her most serious voice. Nodoka studied her a moment then nodded. Ranma headed out to the dojo, "Come on, Ryouga."

            Ryouga shrugged and allowed himself to be dragged out of the house, down the covered walkway and into the training hall. Once they were inside, alone, and the doors secured, he asked, "Do you want to tell me what's going on?"

            "In a second," she brushed him off and composed her mind. She could not bring herself to talk about what they had done that night. It would be simpler to look for evidence linking their activity to the generation or separation of extra ki. She nodded and turned to study the boy across from her. "Are you familiar with your normal ki levels? Can you sense your own ki?" Ryouga nodded. "Okay, take a look now and tell me what you see."

            Ryouga focused his attention inward, asking, "You want to tell me what I am looking for? I don't sense any drain, but then again I have not been fighting recently. I don't know if I could power a shishihokodan right now. My ki is the strongest I've ever felt it, but I'm just not generating any heavy chi. I guess you cured me of my depression," the boy grinned. For a moment, she looked relieved, then she frowned in thought. "Is that what you wanted to know?"

            "Is there any residue or charge built up?"

            Ryouga concentrated harder, then nodded. "That's odd. I almost didn't notice it because it's kind of detached. It's my ki, but it's sort of been shed or split off from the rest. What does that mean?" He opened his eyes and jerked. Ranma looked like someone had killed her puppy and offered her a kitten instead. "Ranma?"

            "What do I do?" she breathed in sudden desperation. More to herself than Ryouga, she babbled, "I- I- I have to tell… but then they'll know… I… Ryouga!" Ranma looked up at him, and at the sight of his concern suddenly wanted to run into his arms, be held, protected. Horrified by her emotional response, she literally jumped away from the boy to stop herself from obeying it. She wanted to scream. It was easy to integrate the memories she had gained, but along with the information came patterns of thought and action ultimately evolved from those experiences. She could not reject them, but she did not want to be controlled by them. Only the most recent developments truly scared the boy in her. Trembling, she fought the emotions they unlocked. 

            "What's going on?" Ryouga was hurt and concerned by her reactions. 

            "I don't even know where to start, man."

            "Well, for one thing, what's wrong with you?'

            "You don't want to know," Ranma declared, turning and walking out of the dojo. It was impossible to tell Ryouga what she had learned about herself from Ranko, how it changed everything between them beyond hope. If she could not tell him she was Ranma, she could not tell him why she was afraid to reveal the solution to Ranko's problem. If she revealed that she had sex with Ryouga, and that ever got back to her mother, Ranma was dead. She collapsed on the walk on her way back inside. "Too many secrets," she sobbed, fighting against tears that came so easily in this form. 

            Ryouga, having followed her, heard and saw this and felt a sharp, cold shock run up his spine. He moved to her side and picked her up, "What secrets, Ranma? What don't I want to know?"

            Ranma sighed. "Hell, you'll find out anyway. I… am Ranma."

            Ryouga frowned, "You've been telling me that since…"

            Ranma began to shake harder. "Now I know why!" she interrupted. "I am Ranma, the real Ranma, the only Ranma there is. The girl you loved died in your arms tonight. Part of her anyway. The rest of her is upstairs," Ranma bit off as clearly as she could manage. When Ryouga stiffened in shock, Ranma broke out of his grip and ran inside. In her thoughtless desperation to get her point through his thick skull, she had said the worst possible thing. A strangled cry of rage and grief came from the boy she had just abandoned. Ranma grit her teeth and forced herself to keep walking, hating herself more with every step. Nodoka met her in the hall, took one look at her lost and self-loathing expression and dragged her into the furo. Ranma did not resist, until the woman began to undress her. "What are you doing?"

            "We're taking a bath. It will give us the privacy to talk," she pulled the girl's dress up over her head and set it aside. Then she noticed the girl was only wearing a bra and stockings under it. In a voice of parental alarm, Nodoka gasped, "What happened to your panties, Ranneko?"

Kasumi had an unpleasant premonition when Ranma came downstairs and dragged Ryouga outside to talk. She knew the girl would be informed of what had happened as soon as she spoke with Ranko, in the process learning that all the obligations and privileges of being Ranma would be returned to her, along with her proper gender, in the near future. It had not taken much to guess how the revelation would impact the nascent relationship between her and Ryouga. Fa Shen had claimed to remember things from the Ranma he replaced, so Ranma probably remembered things from the Ranko she replaced, but would not want to be Ranko anymore than Fa Shen wanted to be Ranma. Kasumi put a hand to her head, staving off a headache. All confusion aside, her fear had been confirmed by the scene she just witnessed, as Ranma destroyed Ryouga with the bad news. As the girl fled, Kasumi slipped out of the shadows and knelt beside the devastated boy and gently hugged him. 

            As he felt the support of the eldest Tendo daughter, Ryouga articulated his suffering in a choked, soul wrenching cry. A moment later the sound of the door closing behind Ranma was heard, and Kasumi bent her head to Ryouga's ear and she murmured, "Ryouga. Ranko mentioned that this might happen because of Ranma's awakening. She asked me to bring you to her if it did, so she could explain what is really going on. Can you… keep it together long enough to hear her out?"

            "Ranko?" the boy asked, grasping for a ray of hope. 

            "Yes. Part of what Ranma said was true. Ranma is not the girl you fell in love with. The Ranko you dated tonight was a… a projection, they said… of the Ranko upstairs. I'm still having a hard time understanding it. I think she can explain it better. Would you like me to take you up to her?" Kasumi offered.

            Ryouga nodded, fighting to hold the shards of his heart together. Kasumi offered a reassuring, motherly smile, and helped the boy to his feet, then let him into the house. There was no sign of Ranma or Nodoka as they made their way to the Tea Room. Genma was waving signs madly, keeping up his side of an argument with Soun, who was straining to keep the panda from rushing out of the room.

            "Father? What is going on?"

            [Nodoka has Ranma!] was written on a sign Genma pulled out of the stack at his feet. He kicked over another. [She took him into the bath!] A couple more signs followed, [He doesn't understand the danger!], [I have to separate them! Rescue my son!]

            At the same time, Soun was retorting. "Saotome-kun! Please be reasonable! I am sure Ranm- Ranko explained everything! Nodoka suspects nothing! You mustn't go in there! Ranma is safe from hot water, but you are not!"

            [That's not the point! They're BATHING together!!!] the panda moaned.

            "They're in the BATH! What else would the be doing together!?" Soun shook the panda roughly. "Get a hold of yourself, Saotome-kun!"

            [But, he's never been with a naked woman before!] The sign flipped. [It's also his first time AS a naked woman!!!] A new sign. [He'll flip out! He'll expose his true identity!!!]

            "Fa Shen said he should remember everything," Soun protested. 

            Kasumi cleared her throat. "Ranma has already talked to Ranko. Maybe you should come upstairs and she can tell you how Ranma is dealing with all of this?" she suggested. "Maybe Nabiki has worked out the details for that trip to China. You could also talk to her," Kasumi added. If nothing else, the fathers needed to concentrate on doing something productive. Both of them had been unhinged by the night's events. After demanding the families mount an immediate excursion to restore Ranma's manhood, and setting the plans in motion, they had done nothing besides brood. They had argued about what sort of state Ranma would be in when he arrived, concerned that he might reveal himself to his mother upon awakening before anyone could explain to him what had happened. Genma remembered the reaction Ranma—the person everyone had assumed was Ranma—had to being cursed. From the way Fa Shen had reacted, the two men were convinced Ranma would rouse Nodoka's suspicions. Retreating into panda form had only made Genma worse, since he could not articulate his fears, or confront the "boy" when she came home. 

            "Why, Kasumi! That is an excellent idea!" Soun locked his arm around the foreleg of Genma-panda and began dragging him toward the stairs. "Come on, Saotome-kun. Let's go see what Nabiki and the old woman have figured out!" With a last look in the direction of the wash room, Genma relented and allowed himself to be dragged upstairs. Kasumi and a shell-shocked Ryouga followed them. A moment later, everyone but Nodoka and Ranma was crammed into the guest room. This included Mousse who climbed in through the window as Kasumi led Ryouga over to Ranko's side. 

            "Why you come back here, Mousse?" Shampoo fumed. 

            "Now, now, Great-Granddaughter," Cologne soothed, perching on her staff and studying the boy carefully. "It's actually good that he is here, as we will need his help to restore Ranma and Fa Shen to semi-normal. Do come in, boy."

            "What can he do to help my son?" Genma demanded, setting down the kettle Kasumi had left on a hot plate in the guest room after it's contents restored his human form. Considering the role the male amazon had played in provoking the current fiasco, Genma was far from willing to trust Mousse in anything. 

            "Actually, it was Ranma's idea," Cologne stated. She repeated Ranma's plan, with help from the girls who had first heard it, and with logistical details worked out by herself and Nabiki. "We will need most of tomorrow to prepare, since we will have to provide food, water and supplies for two to three days for each person who rides in the compact. There are some favorable routes, and good winds, but crossing the Sea of Japan and most of China is quite a bit for a duck. Wouldn't you agree, Mousse?"

            "The flight is never without it's hazards, Elder, but with the right preparation, I am certain I could reach Jusenkyo in forty-eight hours or less," the boy nodded. "However, I must first take care of the business that brings me here again tonight," he raised a stalling hand and turned to approach Ranko and knelt before her, "I challenge you, Ranko, for the right to your hand in marriage."

            There was an immediate uproar. Everyone spoke at once in disbelief or anger, drowning each other out. Cologne finally shouted for silence and pointed to Mousse, "Explain yourself, Mousse!"

            "I should think that was self explanatory, Elder. Ranko is a fine woman, and a warrior without equal under normal circumstances. Also, as I have made my intentions known, and will wait until such time as she is able to meet me in honorable combat, you now have reason to trust that no harm will befall those who travel with her in my care," Mousse declared. Then he smiled, "I will be happy to deliver her, and all who wish to accompany her, to our home in China as soon as this challenge is met."

            "You won't help us get to China until I fight you!?" Ranko gasped.

            "That is correct. I do not want the council to rule on your status until I have had a chance to establish my claim," Mousse nodded. 

            "Why are you doing this Mousse!?" Ranko pleaded. "How can you do this to Ranma and Fa Shen!?"

            "As soon as Elder Cologne recognized you as an amazon, I knew I had no choice. Because of you, regardless of who you thought you were, I have lost every chance I had to marry Shampoo. Since I cannot settle for less, my only hope is to try for more. That means, I must defeat and marry you."

            "What makes you think I will let you!?"

            "It doesn't matter. All that matters is that you have to let me try."

            Ranko stiffened and stared at Cologne. "Is this true?" 

            Cologne nodded sadly, "I am afraid so, child. You don't have to fight him in your present condition, but, you cannot refuse the challenge without dire consequences. If you refuse, you lose the protection of your amazon 'heritage' and Shampoo would have to fulfill the Kiss of Death. If she refuses to do so, Mousse is free to proceed with his original plan to enslave Shampoo. Because I cannot allow that, the three of you would die for nothing." Cologne spat and glared at Mousse. Because all of his plotting was rooted in amazon law, she did not have the right to punish him for his impudence. "You will find no allies among her 'siblings' by denying them passage to Jusenkyo, Mousse. A very foolish move," she declared with scorn. 

            Mousse shrugged, "I do not agree. This will encourage them to help her recover as quickly as possible. It will guarantee that she is fit to return to China, and able to concentrate on dealing with the Musk to unlock her curse."

            Ryouga, who had listened to all of this, stepped forward and clamped a fist of stone around Mousse's neck. "One of the last things Ranko told me, before Ranma woke up and destroyed her, was that it was you who caused Ranma-chan's collapse. You are responsible for the 'awakenings' that destroyed the woman I love. The woman who finally admitted that she loved me. The only thing keeping me sane right now is the thought that my Ranko was just a projection of this Ranko," he pointed at the red-head for emphasis. A bruised and sickly aura of green, purple and black was emanating around him, darkening as he spoke. "I don't know why she's suddenly subject to your amazon laws, but I can tell you this. If you force her into a loveless marriage you will not live long enough to take advantage of it," he pulled the near-sighted master of hidden weapons close, so they were staring into each other's eyes. Mousse's face was darkening in pace with Ryouga's aura. "Do I make myself clear?"

            Mousse, who had not bothered to struggle, holding onto Ryouga's arm solely to ease the stress on his neck, tried to nod. Ryouga snarled and threw him to the ground, away from Ranko. While Mousse pulled himself together, gasping, Ryouga knelt before Ranko. "Kasumi said you could explain it to me. There's only one thing I need to know. Is there any hope…?" he looked up into Ranko's eyes, letting his feelings show plainly on his face.

            Ranko, startled by the threat Ryouga had just delivered to Mousse, stared back at him. She had no idea what had happened on Ryouga's date, but, obviously the feelings the boy initially possessed for Copy-chan had matured toward and been returned by her projection. She wanted to ask what had happened, but could not bring herself to speak. Instead she just nodded, once, timidly. She remembered her reaction to Ryouga asking her double on a date. She did have feelings for him, and no longer any reason to doubt them. It would not be hard to follow in her projection's footsteps. 

            Ryouga let out a breath he had been holding and offered a weak smirk. In a small voice, he asked, "Do I have to get in line to defeat you, so I may date with you?"

            Ranko chuckled. 

            Cologne sighed and shook her head. "Well, it seems you have all of Ranma's luck when it comes to romance, child. You've been Ranko only a few hours now, and already you have two men chasing after you. Not to mention Shampoo. At least you do not need to worry about Akane and Ukyo, since their claims are assigned to Ranma," she chuckled. Out of the corner of her eye, however, she saw the two girls she mentioned stiffen and blush. Akane went so far as to slip an arm under Ranko's chin in a hesitant, but possessive embrace. Cologne's eyes narrowed. Perhaps she had spoken too hastily. 

            "If Ranko chooses to remain a girl," Genma interrupted, "will Shampoo continue to pursue Ranma?"

            Shampoo, who was glaring at Akane and Ukyo, turned to answer, cutting her great-grandmother off. "No. Even if Ranma become boy type again, no can claim Kiss of Marriage. Ranma must defeat Shampoo his self if want Shampoo be Ranma Airen. Is same as if amazon womans defeated by mans possessed by demon or spirit."

            "That is more or less correct, Shampoo," Cologne admitted. "What the council needs to determine is if Ranko is enough of a man to fulfill the Kiss of Marriage, or if she was simply pretending to be a man, in ignorance of her true gender. It's enough of an uncertainty that Mousse is free to challenge her in spite of Shampoo's claim." Cologne considered that more carefully, and noticed the position Mousse would be in if he succeeded in defeating Ranko. Like Shampoo, he would have to await the council's ruling to validate a marriage to Ranko, but in the interim he could challenge Shampoo directly over her claim. Shampoo could either forfeit her claim, or fight Mousse. If Mousse won, he had the option of claiming Shampoo, since Ranko's status was in doubt. She stared at him, and from the way he was looking at her, he had been waiting for her to figure it out. Once again, she had underestimated him. 

            "Well, if Ranma can figure out how she was able to charge Ranko's ki, Ranko might be back to full strength by the time we're packed for the trip," Akane noted, optimistically. Everyone, except for Shampoo and Ukyo, stared at her in shock.

            "What are you talking about, Akane?" Nabiki frowned.

            "I'm not sure I understand. Ranko?" Akane passed the buck. 

            "I don't know where it came from, or anything, but when Ranma touched me, she had a bunch of loose ki inside her or something, and it flowed into me," Ranko explained. "She doesn't seem to remember doing anything unusual, but if she can remember how she did it, and if she can do it without hurting herself, she might be able to charge me back up. If she can teach Fa Shen, the two of them together could do it twice as fast, since I'm used to having both their ki."

            "What?" Ryouga asked suspiciously.

            "Do you want it in Chinese?" Ranko smirked. "Since you were with Ranma, maybe you know how she did it. Can you think of anything unusual she might have done that would build up extra ki?"

            Ryouga felt his system try to pale and blush at the same time. It was the only reason his color remained normal. He blinked, and cocked his jaw several times wordlessly, before noticing all the attention on him. He looked around the room, taking in the expectant looks on their faces. Swallowing hard, and frowning in thought, he realized two things. He suddenly knew why Ranma had freaked out in the dojo, and he did not dare mention the reason to anyone. With a heavy sigh, he shook his head. "No. But I'll talk to her about it."

            There was a general silence, until Genma spoke up again. "Ranko? Ryouga? Can you tell me… How is my son dealing with… with everything?"

            Ryouga scowled. 

            Ranko gave Ryouga a concerned look. "He was pretty upset about things. I think he absorbed my memories of the past year more than Fa Shen. Most of the time I thought I was him, so they're probably a lot easier to fit into his personality. He seemed to understand everything that is going on up to now, and he sounded happy about the trip to Jusenkyo."

            "Can't wait to be a guy again," Ryouga muttered angrily. He forced himself to shake it off and looked at Ranko. "What about you? Do you want to be a guy again too?"

            Ranko looked down at her hands. "Not permanently. I'd like to be able to though. I guess the curse is normal for me. I'd feel pretty weird about never being a guy again. I suppose if I had to be one or the other, I'd want to be able to make that choice on my own, and not be forced to live with which ever one I was stuck with because of something else."

            Ryouga nodded. Closing his eyes thoughtfully, he took a deep breath. He had one last chance. He considered the mystery that was the woman he loved, the two losses he had already suffered trying to hold onto just a piece of her. If his only hope of being the man for her was to also be the woman for her, as he had suggested to Ranma, he was willing to make that sacrifice. He vowed silently that he would be part of the expedition to Jusenkyo. 

There had been too many shocks and revelations in one night. For all the memories she had suddenly crammed into her head, her mind was not used to the situations she was in. She had tried to note and keep aware of such things as the need to keep Nodoka from discovering that she was Ranma, but there was a limit to the number of things she could keep in mind at one time. The most recent shock absorbed so much of her attention she had been too distracted to keep up with her mother's actions. It had not even occurred to her that there was one piece of evidence remaining from her de-flowing, more telling by its absence, until her mother confronted her about her missing panties. Her only serious thought about that, upon the resurgence of her natural persona, was a kind of relief at being spared the indignity of at least one article of feminine undergarment. She had tolerated the bra and stockings only because removing them would have drawn immediate comment. She had not expected to be undressing in front of Nodoka. Naturally, the moment she dropped her guard, that was exactly what she let happen!

            Ranma stiffened. In spite of herself, she barked, "Shit!"

            "Ranneko!"

            Ranma thought fast, her mouth already moving into defense mode, "This isn't what it looks like!" That denial immediately brought to mind what it did look like, though. Since it had been the topic of two private conversations between them, Nodoka did not need any encouragement to suspect that the girl had indulged in the very thing the woman had so carefully cautioned against. While  it worried Nodoka that the girl would have rushed ahead and sated her passion, it was more upsetting to think she would deceive her or deny what she had done after Nodoka had brought the subject out into the open. It signified a lack of trust or respect that was disturbing. Ignoring the girl's protests, Nodoka knelt down, carefully examining the girl's body for evidence of the truth. Pausing at the level of her crotch, and spying a string dangling between the girl's legs, the suspicions that had popped into her mind suddenly retreated a bit. 

            "You use tampons," Nodoka noted idly, sitting back on her heels. It suddenly seemed so obvious, she silently cursed herself for assuming the worst. She thought a moment, then hypothesized aloud, "You didn't have a purse until I gave you one, so you could not have had anything with you. I take it you are early, and your panties were already ruined when you found a tampon dispenser?"

            Ranma did not even try to work out Nodoka's logic, she just nodded. Nodoka quietly apologized for almost jumping to conclusions, but Ranma silently thanked the kami that she had, at least in a favorable direction. The two remained silent as they finished undressing and washed. Ranma concentrated carefully on keeping her eyes from focusing on her mother until they were both up to their necks in the furo.

            "Did you just break up with him?" Nodoka finally broke the silence.

            Ranma nodded.

            "I am sorry. Everything was going so well before the truth came out. I hope this teaches you a lesson about deception, young lady," Nodoka pursed her lips sternly. 

            "In more ways than you know," Ranma sighed. "You wanted to talk to me about Ryouga?" she asked, hoping to spur the conversation toward it's end.

            "Actually, I wished to clarify some things about you and Ranko." Nodoka cleared her throat and asked, "The curse that affects my son, does it affect you or your sister?"

            "Um. It affected both of us. It's part of what made us like one person."

            "I see." Nodoka thought for a moment. "Is that why Ranma was helping Ranko, because this curse is responsible for her condition?"

            "It's better to say, an attempt to cure it is."

            "When you declined my offer to adopt you, was that because you were not Ranko, or because you sincerely fear that you, or her, are in peril of dying?"

            "Some of both. There was always the risk that Ranko, or I, would not survive a cure that benefited Ranma. There still is," she explained. 

            "Are you saying my son is willing to let you two die for him?" Nodoka asked in a pained voice. She was shocked when Ranma's head snapped up and she stared at Nodoka as if she had been stabbed through the gut. Unwittingly, the question had landed on the rawest nerve in her psyche. Her reluctance to share her discovery was tantamount to just that, cowardice.

            Ranma swallowed hard and tried to find some way to answer. It suddenly helped that Ranma was not exactly "himself" at the moment. Her mind, racing for most of the evening, was primed perfectly, and the words she needed began to cascade through her mind. "N-Nodoka, I can't tell you how much he has risked and sacrificed already. You have no idea what a threat this curse is to his manhood, or how hard he has tried to remain worthy of being your son—a man-among-men." She slapped her hand to her breastbone and cried, "I am that threat! Ranko is that threat! To save Ranko, he will have to do something you could never forgive, something that would violate the contract irrevocably. He can save her life, he can rid himself of the curse forever, but then… then he would die for breaking a promise his stupid, ignorant, idiot of a father made on his behalf!"

            "Ranneko! Surely that cannot be! How could saving a girl's life be unmanly by any stretch of the imagination!?"

            "I can't tell you that without damning him here and now. What I can say is, it's not the curse that unmans him. It's the things it forces on him, the situations he has to face, the price he has to pay to get what she needs to survive." She put her hands over her face. "It's him or us. I can tell you this, there are a lot of people who want him more than me. What about you. If you had to chose between him or me, who would you want to live?"

            "I want my son to live, of course, but not at your expense."

            "I don't know how Ranko and I can survive without it costing Ranma his life. For Ranma to survive, both the curse and the contract, Ranko could, and I certainly would, die. That's what makes it a curse," she sighed. "Ranma knows that the manly thing to do is to sacrifice himself. It's safe to say, he knows you would expect that of him. I can't let him do that for me, but I can't stop him from doing it for Ranko. It's his decision that can save her. It's not his decision to save me. It would be kind of stupid to let myself die, though, if ends up dead because of the contract. Don't you think?"

            "I had no idea he… you… faced such drastic choices."

            "If I were your son, what would you have me do?"

            "In this matter, only your conscience can decide," Nodoka cupped the girl's cheek, aching with sadness. "You, as much as my son, need to do what you feel is right. What is most honorable. The sacrifices are asked of you, not me, nor anyone else. If you must choose between honor and integrity, do not betray the latter. Honor can be restored." 


	31. Certain Sacrifices

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Thirty-One: Certain Sacrifices

From the roof of the Tendo Dojo, Ranma watched the rising sun bring the world back to life with crisp and vibrant color. She wanted to lose herself in the beauty of the brilliant blue and white sky, the gold tinting of reflected light that traced the edges of buildings, accenting their subdued, neutral tones, and the occasional flash of emerald plant life. She marveled at the sensitivity of her new eyes to colors, which rivaled the enhanced sense of touch of her delicate skin. It was hard not to rub her hands over herself, but she resisted, reminding herself that it was the same sensuality that betrayed her in her moment of awakening. She had the strength of will to suppress those erotic memories, but the decision she had spent most of the night struggling with had roused them repeatedly. It was impossible to consider what she was obligated to do, to help Ranko, without drifting into the pleasure such sacrifice entailed. Ranma would have preferred outright torture. At least that would be manly. If only she could be sure that she was not secretly grateful for the excuse to continue doing what she had done with Ryouga, she could be a man about it. It would be easier to sacrifice her manhood to save Ranko if she hated what she had to do. It was just wrong that the path to certain destruction should be so fun and exciting. 

            Still, the thing that bothered her most was that she was only afraid of how her decision would impact the people around her. How it would alter the way they thought of her. It hurt that her decision could cost her parents their son, one way or the other. She was still upset with herself over how her desire to be a man had caused her to lash out at Ryouga. When she came out of the bath and went upstairs to prepare for bed, they had passed in the hall, and he had refused to even see her. Her father had nabbed her when Nodoka was distracted and lectured her on her manly obligations, bringing up the feelings she had inherited toward Akane. Even though they felt as real and as strong as her feelings for Ryouga, she knew they were not her true feelings. The sight of Akane supporting Ranko had made it clear that there were no genuine feelings for her in Akane either. That seemed to be true of Shampoo and Ukyo too. Why should they feel anything for Ranma, when it had really been Ranko they had gone through so much with?

            Soun and Genma had never shown much consideration for the feelings of their children, in their marriage pact. Ranma might have obligations as far as Akane and Ukyo went, but fulfilling those obligations could only hurt those girls the way she had already hurt Ryouga. The one good thing that could come out of her sacrifice would be a chance to make it up to him. If, in the course of saving Ranko, she lost all desire to be a man, that would no longer stand in the way of picking up where she and Ryouga had started. If he could ever forgive her for how that night ended. It would be easy enough to let Nodoka believe "Ranma" had died, since it would not be too far from the truth. Genma would go along with it, since if the truth came out he'd have to commit seppuku right next to his ruined son. 

            Ranma sighed. She was kidding herself. If it wasn't for the contract, she would not give any of this a second thought. She'd sleep with a hundred men if that's what it took, now that she knew it was far from terrible, and still be just as inclined to be a man. She had no real desire to give her manhood up. The problem with the contract was not even that she would have to die to preserve her family honor. While not eager to die, there was no question she was willing to lay down her life over a matter of honor. However stupid the contract seemed, there might be a reason beyond sheer absurdity for his mother to honor it. No, her concern about the contract was that if it were upheld, it would take his entire family down. If one thing became certain, after her talk with her mother, it was that she was not going to let her parents die because of that contract. If Ranma needed to die, she would take care of that in her own way, even if that meant literally. Genma would have to make his own amends, find his own way to restore his honor, but it ultimately could not be his fault if Ranma failed to be a man-among-men at this point. 

            Until she knew what it meant, in Nodoka's eyes, to be a man-among-men, she would not allow the contract to dictate her decisions. That left the question of what was the right thing for Ranma, as a martial artist, to do. That made it simple. Ranko needed to recover all of her ki to break the mirror's hold over her. Ranma knew how to ensure that. If this changed her feelings about being a man, well, it was not like that had not been a danger all along, because of the curse. If she was enough of a man, afterwards, she would face whatever obligations that demanded of her. Frowning in thought, she noted that the obvious expectations concerned the future, but it occurred to her that there might be matters in the past and present she needed to address while she was man enough, in spirit, to take care of them. Over the course of the night, she had plenty of time to consider the deeds performed in her name by Ranko. Ranko could not be held responsible, because there was no telling how much she might have been influenced by Fa Shen's personality, or her own need to discover herself as a person. Prior to the curse, Ranma had always been obedient to his father. From the memories she now had, the curse had created a person who lacked the trust and respect Ranma owed in spite of all his father's faults. 

            Ranma could not resolve the problems created by the engagement, but recognized that it would be dishonorable for her to fight Genma, Soun and Akane as her surrogate had. The multiple engagements created enough problems and conflict, and she would have to take responsibility for that mess. Not a pleasant thing to look forward to. Ryouga was another problem. Not just the emotional attachment, Ranma had to do something about the whole P-chan situation with Akane. By turning Ranma… Ranko's honor against her, Ryouga had created a dishonorable situation for Ranko, Akane and himself. The worst thing, however, was the way Genma forced Ranko to hide from Nodoka. Nabiki had been right. The situation should have been explained. Lying to her was unforgivable, and Ranma resented having come into the middle of that deception and ending up contributing to it. She shuddered at the thought of trying to fix that problem. In retrospect, lying to her had been the correct thing to do, but unless Nodoka could understand that, it was not safe to enlighten her.

            "Damn. I know it's not your fault, Ranko, but you sure made a mess out of my life!" she growled. 

            "Oh, she had help, no question of that!" Cologne chuckled.

            Ranma jumped straight up in shock. She had not heard the old woman sneaking up on her. "Dammit! I hate when you do that!" she growled, landing softly on her toes, braced for combat. Relaxing, she settled back where she had been seated. "What do you want, old woman?"

            After delivering the obligatory skull-crack with her staff, Cologne perched on it in front of the girl. "I actually came up here to enjoy the sunrise and warm my old bones, youngster. However, seeing as you seem to be wrestling with things, I don't see any harm in offering my counsel."

            "You came all the way over here to 'warm your bones'?" Ranma challenged skeptically. 

            "I see you have been distracted quite a bit longer than I expected, child. In case you had not noticed, Kasumi deemed it too late, when we concluded our meeting last night, for people to return to their homes. As Happi never returned from the clinic, I availed myself of the use of his room, with Shampoo and Mousse. Ukyo shared Akane's room and Ryouga slept in the dojo," Cologne informed.

            Ranma sighed, smirking. "Great. The gang's still all here." She stretched and ran her fingers through her hair, noticing she had forgotten to braid it before going to sleep. Ironically, braiding her hair into the characteristic pig-tail was something that was after her time. Ranma had usually just tied his long hair back in a pony-tail. Producing a string, she proceeded to do just that, asking Cologne to fill her in on the meeting, since she had been with Nodoka while it was going on. 

            Cologne covered the highlights. 

            "You're kidding!? Mousse challenged Ranko to a marriage duel, and Ryouga…?" she could not finish past the sudden stab to her heart. 

            Cologne saw her cringe and clutch her chest in pain and shrewdly overlooked it. "That is correct. The boy wishes to challenge Shampoo's claim, no doubt to position himself to challenge Shampoo directly, before the council can rule on Ranko's eligibility."

            "So Shampoo isn't going to be after me?"

            "I am not sure that anyone is after you at the moment, but no, Shampoo has no claim to you. You would need to regain your manhood and defeat her in combat to regain her interest."

            "Like I'd wanna do that!" Ranma scowled. 

            "Oh? Perhaps someone else has caught your fancy? A certain wandering young man, perhaps?" Cologne prodded. 

            Ranma jerked. Looking away she shook her head, "Echoes of someone else. Besides, I don't think he'd be interested anymore." Ranma tried to change the subject, "Say, if the Kiss of Marriage is not gonna shift to me, what about the other one?"

            "The Kiss of Death? No, that one has already been dissolved. If Ranko chooses to remain entirely female, the Kiss of Marriage will be dissolved too, though that is no protection from Mousse. With no option of claiming Shampoo as his bride, he certainly would take marriage to Ranko more seriously."

            "That's a status thing?"

            Cologne nodded.

            "Well," Ranma sighed, "first he'd have to be able to defeat her. I'm kinda tempted to go kick his head in for thinkin' he can use her like that to get to Shampoo!"

            "I would not recommend that. On the off chance you slipped and knocked yourself out, it could be you who had to marry him," Cologne laughed.

            Ranma slowly turned to meet her eye and stared hard. "What!?"

            Cologne grinned, "You and Ranko have several things in common at the moment, starting with being permanently female and legitimate reincarnations of Fa Shen. Those two things are enough to make you both recognizable as amazon warriors."

            Ranma burst to her feet in dismay. "You mean I have to marry any jerk who can beat me up!? What does that mean if I go back to being a guy!?"

            "Well, that would come as a shock to the tribe. It is quite unusual for a reincarnated warrior to remain male, if that is how they were reborn, after being reunited with the tribe. However, when it happens, the 'man' is regarded as an honorary woman. It usually is necessary for 'her' to accept and use the female form given by the nyanniichaun, though 'she' is allowed to take wives instead of husbands," Cologne snickered. 

            "So, because of Fa Shen, I'm always gonna have to be a girl?"

            "If you did not always reject it out of hand, you might just find you could enjoy it, child," Cologne finally laughed out loud. She stopped at the odd look on Ranma's face as she shouted her response.

            "That's the problem! Are you forgetting that stupid contract!?"

            Cologne sighed and composed herself. "In point of fact, I have not. However, as you have put it, 'stupid' is an appropriate description. I would also assert that stupidity is one of honor's greatest adversaries. I fail to see the honor in a contract intended to diminish the potential and capacity of one's own offspring."

            "Heh. You mean, you wish I was a girl. An amazon girl."

            "You are," Cologne stated, turning to excuse herself. 

            Ranma scowled and sulked as she left. As much as she did not appreciate having any more encouragement to abandon her manhood, it was a small relief to think she had some options if she ended up losing it. Scrubbing her face with her hands, she tried to dismiss the things Cologne had given her to think about. Unfortunately, she was not allowed to, as Mousse came over the peak of the roof.

            "She has no idea how true that is," the blind boy announced, striding purposefully toward the red-head and squatting down to meet her eyes. With a knowing grin, he continued, before she could speak. "I had a little talk with Ryouga, last night. Your lover needs to learn not to think out loud."

            "I don't know what you're talking about," she instantly denied.

            Mousse adjusted his glasses and noticed how pale she suddenly was. "There's no reason to deny it, Saotome. Personally, the only thing that shocked me was learning that you were a virgin until last night. From the way you two carried on, I thought you had indulged yourselves many times already."

            "You might wanna give your last words more thought, Mousse," she grated dangerously. Behind her anger was an overwhelming outrage that Ryouga had been so careless! However, she held on tight and tried to discourage Mousse. "It's pretty stupid to mistake someone's fantasies for reality. Of course, you never could tell the difference yourself, so I'll just have to remind you!" She rose to her feet and prepared to cut loose. 

            "Relax, Saotome," Mousse backed away and stared off the edge of the roof. "All Ryouga actually let slip was that sex had to be the source of the ki that you gave Ranko, since that was the only new thing you both did last night. If I did not depend so much on my ears to get by, I would never have heard what he was muttering to himself. I doubt anyone else could have. However," he turned back to the girl, "what really interests me is what he admitted to when I asked him what he was talking about. All he said was that you figured out how to heal her. Since he will not talk to you—it seems you broke his heart—he asked me to speak to you on his behalf and urge you to heal her."

            Ranma dropped bonelessly to her rear. "I am screwed," she moaned.

            "You WERE screwed, if you want to be accurate about your tenses," Mousse grinned, pacing forward to stare down at her. "I do believe I know what you meant, however. It would probably be bad if your mother learned of this, so I will promise you now, as long as you agree to hear me out and give me an honest reply, that I will never even hint about what I have or will learn about your sexual exploits. Is that reasonable?" Mousse asked pointedly. 

            Ranma sucked in a deep breath and then nodded cautiously. Mousse sighed and moved to sit down next to her. Ranma studied his face and noticed he seemed ashamed of himself. "What do you want, Mousse?"

            "I must ask two things of you, Ranma. Since you've been told about my challenge to Ranko, I want to make sure you understand my intentions first," he announced, before repeating the conversation he had with Fa Shen the other night. He then confirmed what happened when he delivered his challenge to Ranko. "It goes without saying, Ryouga is not happy with me, but even knowing she has to fight me as soon as she is able, he told me to tell you this. 'Heal Ranko. Take Ranko's advice and get Fa Shen to help you.' He said you need a guy to help you—which is obvious when you know what he's talking about—but that he can't be that guy. Since this is also my first request, I strongly urge you to speak to Fa Shen at once."

            "What's your second request?"

            "Well, it's the same one I made of Fa Shen. I need your help to train so that I can defeat Ranko," he admitted. 

            "I don't need you to tell me to do the first, and you should know I would not help you like that against Ranko. I can't do that to her," Ranma bit her lip. 

            "So. I guess I should go tell everyone the good news about you and Ryouga then," Mousse threatened. 

            "Fine. Then start running, I'll catch up to you when I've taken care of things here," Ranma replied woodenly, fighting to remain still.

            Mousse sighed. "I'm not going to tell. I never planned to. Damn you, Saotome. I need your help. Weren't you listening? I am only interested in another shot at Shampoo!"

            "You just tried to blackmail me. I'm supposed to trust what you say!?"

            Mousse sagged and looked away. "Like you would have helped if I just asked for it!" he accused disdainfully. 

            "You never tried asking."

            "Fine. I am asking!" he huffed. 

            Ranma shrugged and climbed to her feet. She walked to the edge of the roof and turned before responding. "You're asking the wrong person. If Ranko says I can help you, then I will." She jumped down and began racing to the clinic to see Fa Shen. The best she could do for Ranko right now was to help her recover quickly, so Mousse had as little time as possible to train for their challenge. Because of her short stature, she was already at a serious disadvantage fighting Mousse, as their first combat had proven. Only with ki attacks at her disposal could she win against him now. 

In spite of feeling weaker than she could ever remember feeling, Ranko had not been very tired. Part of that stemmed from the hours she had been in a trance, through which her body had apparently slept. So, despite the late hour when she had finally gone to bed, she had awakened well before sunrise and listened to Ranma toss and turn listlessly in the futon beside her. Because of Nodoka's presence, and general fatigue, she had not started a conversation with her obviously insomniac twin. She regretted that when the other girl threw aside her covers and slipped out the window. Something weighed very heavily on Ranma's conscience, Ranko concluded, and wished she had the strength to climb out after her to find out what it was. As the sun came up and gently lit the room, Ranko grew more and more restless, worrying about Ranma, until she finally had to get up. That was a painful process, since even with her ki boosted by what Ranma had poured into her, she was still operating on the dregs of her spirit. Grateful to have her balance and coordination at least, she strained and panted to crawl out of bed and drag her body over to the door. By the time she reached it, the sound of her struggles woke up Nodoka, who was instantly at her side.

            "Ranko! You should not be exerting yourself!" she cried softly. Ranko chuckled and continued to fight to her feet, using the door frame for support. Nodoka lent her strength, but pulled her back into an embrace. "Shhh. Just relax and tell me where you're in such a hurry to go?" the woman crooned. 

            "The bathroom, for starters," the girl winced, suddenly noticing the pressure on her bladder. That got Nodoka moving. She slipped one of Ranko's arms over her shoulder, put one of her own around the girl's waist and carefully walked her to the upstairs bathroom, next door to the guest room. The small room offered only a sink, toilet and mirror, but that was all that was needed. Ranko blushed, but accepted the woman's help removing her pants and positioning herself on the toilet. 

            "I hate not being able to take care of myself," she complained as her mother cleaned her up, moments later.

            "There is no need to be ashamed of taking help when you need it," Nodoka soothed, sensing the girl's embarrassment. She stood the girl up, bracing her with a shoulder to pull her panties back up, but left the pants off at her insistence. 

            "It's that much less for me to struggle against to move," Ranko pointed out, as they reentered the hall. "Do you mind helping me downstairs? I'd like to get a bath in before everyone wakes up, since I'm moving so slow."

            "I don't think you are in any condition to bathe yourself, young lady. I will take you down stairs however. I am sure Kasumi won't mind helping you when she comes down for her bath," Nodoka proposed. The girl shrugged, just grateful to be out of her room. Before her thoughts could wander, Nodoka surprised her by asking, "Seeing the price you've paid, was this attempt at a cure worth it?"

            "I- excuse me?" Ranko was stunned. She suddenly remembered what Nabiki told her, about the confrontation with Kuno. "Oh. I suppose it was. If I had not blundered into it, Ranma would never have been able to get free," she observed thoughtfully. 

            "Are you saying the cure was a success?" Nodoka brightened. 

            Ranko shook her head sadly. "Not a complete success. There are some problems that have to be taken care of before Ranma will be able to get back to normal," she hedged carefully. It was ironic that, now, Ranma had to be cursed to fix the side effects of the "cure" for Ranko's curse. 

            Nodoka concentrated on steering them both down the stairs, not speaking until they reached the main floor. "Can you explain why one of you has to die to overcome this curse?" Nodoka begged. Ranko stared at her and asked her to explain exactly what "Ranneko" had said to give her that idea. Nodoka hesitated, deciding to take the girl into the Tea Room and sit her at the table before repeating the conversation she had with Ranma in the bath the night before. While she was talking, Cologne entered and sat herself on the edge of the table to listen. When Nodoka completed her recitation, she turned to the old woman. "I don't believe we've been introduced. I am Nodoka Saotome."

            "Ah, yes. Ranma's mother. It is a great pleasure to meet you Nodoka. I am Cologne, Matriarch of the Jokezoku," she smiled and held out her hand. Nodoka took her hand in friendship and smiled at the old woman in surprise.

            "You're kidding!? You can't mean the fabled tribe of Chinese Amazons!?" Nodoka laughed in amusement. Cologne's eyes widened, surprised that the woman recognized the name, but simply nodded firmly. "You're not kidding." Nodoka blinked off her surprise. "I am so sorry. I did not mean to offend. My father used to tell me stories about the Jokezoku. I thought they were just fairy tales! Imagine that! And here you are, the real thing!"

            Cologne's eyes narrowed slightly with interest. "I don't suppose you could tell me about these stories of his? I'd be most interested to learn what legends of our people have traveled so far." 

            "Oh, I haven't heard any since I was a little girl," Nodoka waved it off. "I doubt I can remember more than how he used to tease me about my mother. She died when I was born, you see, so all I know about her were the stories he told me, and of course he tried to make her sound very exotic." Nodoka sighed. With a laugh, she went on to explain, "I used to be very self conscious of my hair color, you see. When I was a girl, my hair was as red as Ranko's here. My father would try to comfort me by saying that, where my mother came from, hair like mine was quite normal compared to the other women in her 'tribe'!"

            Cologne smirked. "Well, if he was talking about the Jokezoku, he certainly was not wrong about that! You should see my Great-Granddaughter!"

            Nodoka thought back. "Would she be the girl with the purple-hair I saw coming out of the guest room when Ranneko and I went to bed?"

            "That would be the one. However, I can't say that your father's stories could be true. I've been around quite some time and I don't recall losing one of our girls to a foreigner, who could possibly be your mother," Cologne noted skeptically. Her own suspicions, however, as she studied the woman, suggested that Nodoka's mother might well have been a victim of the nyanniichaun. One who bore the stamp of Fa Shen. Knowing she could not mention this to Nodoka, she probed in another direction, "I don't suppose I could meet your father? I think I might enjoy learning how he became acquainted with our tribe."

            "I am sorry to say, he died about a month or so ago. I was hoping to learn from him if little Ranko here, and now her sister, might be related to me or my mother," Nodoka replied, with a tinge of resurfaced grief.

            "I am sorry to hear that," Cologne sighed. Death was Mystery's greatest ally, the ruthless protector of her secrets. She allowed herself a smile, however, imagining the woman's reaction to discovering Ranko's true relation to her. Then, remembering the contract, shuddered. The conversation drifted into talk of the amazon tribe, and an edited version of how they became acquainted with Ranma. Kasumi arrived and the conversation paused long enough for her to agree to help Ranko bathe. After they exited, Nodoka continued to ask her questions and found herself intrigued by the different views of the amazons, especially as they pertained to the status of women. Cologne was just revealing that Ranko and "Ranneko" were considered amazons through reincarnation, when Akane stumbled down stairs and approached.

            Seeing the girl wished to talk to her, Cologne interrupted herself and turned to her. "Good morning, Akane. Is there something I can do for you?"

            "Good morning. Actually, I just wanted to know if you wanted this back?" Akane reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out the bottle of water Cologne had tossed her, after pouring most of its contents on Ranko to lock her curse. She carefully handed it over to the ancient amazon.

            Cologne stretched out her hand gratefully, "Yes, indeed. Thank you, Akane." She was about to return the bottle to the pocket where its sister resided when she noticed something odd. Peering closely, she noticed that one corner of the label was peeling off. She almost dismissed it when she noticed that there seemed to be another label underneath it. A frigid jolt sparked down her spine, as she carefully peeled the top layer off and looked at what was underneath it. With shaking hands, she pulled out the other bottle and stared at the label. The two were identical. Without hesitation, she sprung to her feet and raced to the bathroom, praying it was not too late.

            Akane was instantly worried by the woman's actions. Having peered over Cologne's shoulder, she had seen the discovery of the other label, and the comparison. Remembering the explanation from the previous night, she gasped in terror and raced after the diminutive woman. When she saw Cologne burst through the doors of the washroom and furo, she knew the worst was inevitable. Cologne was shouting as she entered.

            "Ranko! Stay away from hot water!"

            "Cologne!?" Kasumi's startled voice came out.

            "What's wrong!" rang Ranko's panicked cry, followed by the sound of water splashing and naked flesh hitting the tiles. 

            Akane pushed past Cologne, who had frozen in shock on entering the bathroom, and looked down at Ranko. She was panting, laying sprawled on the bathroom floor, with wisps of steam rising from her wet skin. Only terror inspired by Cologne's shout had given her the strength to thrust herself out of the bath, but the effort left her too exhausted to resist gravity as it crushed her to the ground. 

            "This is impossible!" Cologne gasped.

            "Ranko? Are you okay!?" Akane was instantly beside the girl, pulling her up into her lap as she knelt on the hard tiles.

            "I can barely move," the red head responded, close to hyperventilating. She flopped as Akane wrestled her around so she could sit back against her body. With her head aimed roughly in Cologne's direction, she fought to lift her chin and look at the old woman. "What's going on?" she gasped. 

            "You were in the bath?" Cologne demanded.

            Kasumi nodded, "We've been in here for several minutes. I didn't want her to catch cold, so I washed her as quickly as I could and brought her in to soak with me." 

            It was obvious the girl had not changed. Cologne sagged, holding a hand over her heart. "Thank the heavens. It was a false alarm! Please forgive the intrusion, girls. Ranko, you can go back in and finish your bath."

            "What happened? Why were you so scared?"

            Cologne held out the bottles and the loose label. "I thought I used the wrong water to lock her curse. If I had, though, she would already have evaporated," she took a deep breath and allowed herself a nervous laugh. "I must have reused an antidote bottle for the chisuiiton water."

            Cologne and Akane returned to the Tea Room and resumed their seats. Faced with Nodoka's alarm, Cologne simply stated her fear of having used the wrong medicine to help Ranko. Nodoka took the used bottle and examined it as she listened to the explanation. 

            Frowning, Nodoka looked up. "It looks like ordinary water. What is it supposed to do?"

            "For you or me, that is ordinary water. It wouldn't do a thing. But for someone cursed like Ranko, it was the only thing that saved her life," Cologne explained. Seeing Nodoka's skeptical look she waved her hand. "Go ahead. Drink it if you're curious. It won't do anything to you. But, believe me, if I had been wrong about this, Ranko would already be a memory." Cologne sagged. She was getting too old for such excitement. 

            Nodoka opened the bottle and paused. "So, it's just been blessed or something?" Cologne nodded, and put the other bottle away. Nodoka shrugged and took a sip. "Wow," she shivered. She had felt a shock go through her body as she sipped. It had felt rather pleasant, actually. With a grin, she tipped the vessel up. "It really does have something special," she commented, before taking a long swallow and emptying the bottle. 

            Akane, still staring at Cologne, was the only one to notice the elder jerk in alarm at Nodoka's words. Before she could speak, however, the empty bottle thumped onto the table. Akane watched as Cologne paled, before turning to look at Nodoka, half afraid of what she might see. With a sigh, Akane saw Nodoka grinning to herself as she circled the mouth of the bottle with a finger. Then she gasped. 

            "A- Auntie N-No-Nodoka!"

            Nodoka looked up, confused. "What's wrong, Akane?"

            "Y- your h-h-hair!" Akane pointed in disbelief.

            Nodoka frowned and reached up to feel her hair. Her immediate dread, that the water had perhaps caused her hair to fall out was dismissed at once as she felt her thick, long hair still tied securely in a bun at the back of her head. Still, the girl and the old woman were looking completely flabbergasted, so she pulled at the knot securing it in a bun and let her hair unravel, so she could pull it forward and look at it—now expecting it to have turned white or something. "I suppose I should have known better than to drink magical water. How irresponsible of you, Cologne," she chided, preparing herself for a shock. She was not prepared to see the brilliant, scarlet hue that had returned to her hair. "Good heavens! My color is back!"

            Cologne and Akane turned to each other. Nodoka sprung to her feet and danced out of the room in obvious delight as she celebrated this magical transformation. 

            "Can you explain what just happened?" Akane croaked.

            "Merciful Goddess. There is only one explanation," she reached out for the bottle and pulled it carefully to her chest. At that moment, Mousse walked through the room and asked if anyone had seen Ranko. Cologne stared at him, then the bottle, and finally back up at him. She threw the bottle at him, held up the label in her hand and demanded. "Mousse! Do you know what this is? Or, more importantly, how it came to be mislabeled!?" she barked commandingly. 

            Mousse caught the bottle easily and looked at it. He recognized the label at once. A second glance, leaning in close to read the label in her hand, and he suddenly froze in terror. "You used this on Ranko!?" The old woman nodded, and Mousse pulled a similar bottle out of his pocket. "Quick! Where is she!?"  
            Cologne rose to her feet and glared at him, conveying the grief of a ruler as she announced, "Ranko has taken a hot bath." Mousse let out an anguished cry and crumpled to the ground. 

            "No! I didn't mean…! I was just…" he choked and turned to face Cologne. "You have to understand! I was just trying to protect myself! I didn't want you to lock me in my cursed form!"

            "You are an idiot, Mousse! Do you have any idea what you have done!?"

            "I meant her no harm! I… I was ready to marry her!"

            "Do not lie to me, child! You meant to use her!"

            "But…" Akane tried to interrupt.

            "Silence. Akane, he needs to learn the error of his ways."

            "But…"

            "Shhhh!" Cologne winked at her. Akane choked down her protest and stared at Mousse. The matriarch glared down at him, where he was prostrating himself before her, and demanded, "Mousse. Knowing what you have done to Ranko, I ask you. What are your intentions?"

            Mousse squawked and looked up in confusion. "Intentions!?"

            "Consider the situation and how it effects my Great-Granddaughter."

            Mousse swallowed hard. If he had just killed Ranko… He shook his head violently and tears began to stream down his face. "No! No! It was an accident. I will not claim… I will not use this to enslave Shampoo!"

            Cologne stared him down. Mousse bowed his head. "I am pleased to hear this, Mousse," she stated gently. The blind boy jerked up to a kneeling position and stared at her in abject confusion.

            "What?"

            "Though you scheme and manipulate like the lowest sort of criminal, you are true to your nature as a master of hidden weapons. It is all bluff and bluster. Sleight of hand. Isn't it?" Mousse gawked at her, wordlessly. "Why would you ignore the chance to claim Shampoo?"

            "It is not worth Ranko's life. It is not worth Shampoo's death."

            "Well," Cologne sighed, "I suppose it is a good thing Ranko is not dead, then. Isn't it?" She smiled as Mousse jumped to his feet, and then keeled over in shock. She glanced over at Akane and chuckled. "However, because of your stupidity, instead of locking her curse, you have caused me to cure it," she delivered the final blow. It staggered Akane as much as Mousse.

            "Whaaaat!!?" she howled in disbelief. "How can that be!?"


	32. A Shocking Proposition

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Thirty-Two: A Shocking Proposition

Dr. Tofu had risen almost an hour before dawn and promptly tripped over the boy, sprawled over a thin mat, sleeping on his floor. In this fashion, Fa Shen once again became conscious of her transformation into a boy. She barely heard Tofu's apologies as she sat up… as HE sat up and confronted himself. He had no choice, since he was painfully aware of the throbbing ache in his groin distracting him from the complaints of a full bladder. Gritting his teeth, he rose and followed the doctor into the bathroom. His mind flashed over the previous evening, untangling itself from the memories recently grafted into it and concentrating on what had happened after he parted company with Mousse. He arrived at the clinic at ten-thirty; Tofu had pointed out the time as he came in, saying they had an hour to talk before they should go to bed. Fa Shen had pushed aside Mousse's request and proceeded to vent his frustration. Simply put, he was beside himself. The only thing Fa Shen had to cushion the blow of his inadvertent sex change was the memories that came with the new body. The problem was, they had a tendency to make him think he was someone else. Ranma. 

            "Ah! That is what I feared," Dr. Tofu had replied, sadly. 

            "It's very strange, actually. On one hand, I remember waking up a few hours ago as a girl here in the clinic, but now I also feel like I crawled out of that spring months ago as a different person," Fa Shen elaborated. He shuddered, "I've been knocked for a loop a few times in my life, and at least once forgot who I was after fighting my way out of a dragon's belly. I am not sure how to deal with these memories of being Ranma."

            "Well, consider the bright side at least," Tofu pointed out, leading him into his office and offering him a chair. "Obviously, you have gained the ability to speak Ranma's native language and you are familiarized with the current situation and circumstances. All of the things you did not know when you woke up are now revealed. Our main concern is to weed out any conflicts that emerge from having Ranma's personality in addition to your own."

            "Which is sort of odd, since I got it from Ranko."

            "I suspect Ranko will have many of the problems you will. Especially if she unearths the memories she has from you. The only effective remedy for either of you is to consider your thoughts and actions carefully and decide if they express your true intentions," Tofu proposed. 

            "Do you believe there is any danger in using these memories to help me deal with being male?" Fa Shen asked in concern. 

            "I believe that any experience you have to call upon is useful. Even bad experiences can help you be a better person. It is not uncommon for people to draw on experiences derived through other people, or say, characters in stories. Considering that the three of you are embodiments of the same soul, I doubt that sharing your experiences would be harmful. The only thing that sets you all apart is your individual perspectives. That will be true as long as you all live."

            "So, I'm not going to turn into Ranma if I do?"

            "I doubt a year of being Ranma can undo a lifetime of being yourself, Fa Shen. Certainly, this makes you different from what you were, but only you can determine who you are. The real question, for all of you I suspect, is really one of gender. You all have the experience of a year of flipping from male to female several times a day, but suddenly you are all stuck as one or the other, and," Tofu smiled in sympathy, "at least you and Ranma are stuck as the opposite of what you are most comfortable with."

            "I am not happy about being male, nor do I like having my personality shift towards Ranma's in order to deal with it," Fa Shen winced in agreement. 

            Tofu studied him thoughtfully for a moment. Out of clinical interest, he proceeded to point out the assets of Fa Shen's present form and prompting his opinion on each. After twenty minutes, he decided that Fa Shen could appreciate his new body, and even confessed to a healthy curiosity about it. After assuring him that it was perfectly natural for Fa Shen to explore his new condition and satisfy his curiosity about his anatomy and physiology, Tofu concluded, "It seems to me that you are more upset at not being female than you are about being male. Is that correct?"

            "I guess that sums it up. I like being a girl. I loved my body and I want it back," she insisted passionately. "As soon as I can, I plan to visit my grave and get it back."

            "So, you only need to get by as a boy temporarily. Even Ranma was able to cope with being a girl for a month here or there, when he could not change back for one reason or another."

            "Are you sure that's not because he was really Ranko?"

            "At the time, there was no difference," Tofu shrugged. Rather than drift into discussing Ranko, Tofu proceeded to introduce Fa Shen to the practical aspects of being male, starting with a brief examination and then a trip to the bathroom to cover various aspects of hygiene. Once he was sure Fa Shen could cope with going to the bathroom, he excused himself, leaving the boy in the bathroom alone with the suggestion that there might be things Fa Shen wished to explore in private. This served to remind Fa Shen that "Ranma" had indulged his curiosity about becoming female, without prompting, the first time "she" bathed. Fa Shen never had the luxury of remaining ignorant of sex in his former life. She had demanded answers as soon as she had been confronted by boys and men interested in defeating her for the purpose of marriage. What she had learned had a great deal to do with her aversion to males from that point on. Alone in the bathroom, Fa Shen was forced to admit that, while she never wanted a man to force himself on her, it did not mean she had not been curious about men. It was simply ironic that she had to be one before he was able to indulge her curiosity. 

            A half hour of experimentation, however, had not revealed all the mysteries of manhood, as Fa Shen discovered in the morning. His rush to relieve himself was interrupted when he dropped his pants and discovered his penis proudly straining upward, fully engorged. A small cry of shock escaped his lips, followed by a groan of frustration. "What the hell is wrong with this thing!?"

            Dr. Tofu heard the complaint and poked his head out of the shower. "Are you having some difficulty?" 

            Fa Shen turned around to face him and gestured helplessly, flushing with embarrassment, "I can't go to the bathroom like this! Not unless I stand on my hands! And, before you say anything, this is NOT my fault! I was NOT playing with it! I just want to pee!"

            Dr. Tofu suppressed the urge to laugh, and shook his head at the boy's chagrin. The poor thing looked ready to cry in frustration. "Relax, Fa Shen. The thought never even occurred to me. That is, erm," he flushed faintly. "This is actually a normal occurrence for men. Sleep can induce a mild state of arousal. Complicated by a full bladder, you can become fully erect. That, ah, condition pinches off the connection between the bladder and the urethra."

            "What am I supposed to do!? I really gotta go!" Fa Shen began to exhibit traces of Ranma as the dilemma taxed the boy's feminine psyche. 

            Tofu sighed and gestured haphazardly, "Just… push it down. It's not a rock, Fa Shen. Even like that it's, ah, rather flexible. Just make sure you have it aimed correctly before you cut loose." The doctor retreated into the shower, and did his damnedest not to burst out laughing. One did not become a physician without some sense of physical humor, but nothing could prepare a man for helping a girl-turned-boy master the art of peeing while standing up. 

            Fa Shen considered the instructions and timidly brought his hands forward. With his thumb and forefinger, he proceeded to "aim" for the toilet bowl, wincing at the discomfort caused by bending the swollen organ. The previous evening, he had learned how to relax and let gravity take over. After several minutes, he decided he could sooner thread a needle with winter mittens on. Applying a little effort, he felt a slight obstruction give and hastily corrected his aim as urine shot out under intense pressure. A few moments later, he was wondering when he drank the contents of a lake. Eventually, the ordeal was over. He remembered to shake before putting himself away, and flushed the toilet in relief. The final remark, "What!? Oh, now you go all soft again!? Gyaaaaaah!!" was too much for Tofu. He roared with laughter as Fa Shen raced out of the bathroom. 

            In something of a temper, Fa Shen made his way down stairs into the clinic. It would have been simpler to slip into the memories and let that persona deal with the quirks of manhood, but he had been too proud to take the easy route. He refused to admit that being male intimidated him. That approach had worked the night before, and the results had been pleasant, if ultimately messy and shocking. He had to check his memories to establish that the consequences were normal, but at least he had resorted to it after the fact. Shaking his head, he wandered into the waiting room, choosing to avoid the area where Happosai had slept the night in the examination room, and settled down on a couch. Until he could return to the dojo and find out what had happened when Ranma returned home, he would stay out of the doctor's way. He was quickly lost in though, passing the time by thinking through what had happened and what still had to be done. 

            Sometime later, his brooding was interrupted by a tapping on the clinic's glass front door. Rousing himself, he peeked out the window and saw Ranma. It had to be Ranma, since last he saw, Ranko could barely move. Bounding over to the door, he unlocked it and invited her in. 

            "Ranma? It is you, isn't it?"

            "Yeah. And you're Fa Shen. They told me about you last night."

            "Do you…?"

            "I remember meeting you in the dream," Ranma anticipated the question. She studied him in faint shock, and shook her head. "Even with the memories, it's too weird seein' you in my body."

            "No argument there!" Fa Shen laughed. Leading the girl over to the couch, he flopped down and asked, "So, if you're here, does that mean it's safe to go back to the dojo?"

            "No. I don't know. I was up before everyone else, and I came over here sort of on impulse," Ranma replied. 

            "That explains why you are still in your pajamas." Fa Shen grinned.

            Ranma blinked and looked down at herself. Slapping her forehead, she sighed. She had been in such a hurry to get away from Mousse, she had forgotten she was dressed in the pajamas Nodoka had picked out for her last night. "Stupid. I'm used to sleeping in my clothes."

            "You're resisting the memories?" Fa Shen probed. He watched as the girl shrugged and moved to the opposite couch and sat down cross-legged.

            "No point fightin' them, but I keep disconnecting at odd moments." Ranma propped her hands on her crossed ankles and straightened her spine. 

            Fa Shen nodded. "They're useful, but… they're not really me, either. So, if you rushed over here on impulse, you must have something you want to tell me," he suggested, shifting into a similar pose. 

            "A lot of things, actually. Mousse challenged Ranko to a marriage duel last night, and I discovered a way to heal her. Mousse caught on and pushed me to get your help healing her. He asked me to help train him to beat Ranko, too," she sighed, biting her lip and averting her eyes.

            Fa Shen sensed there was more than she was saying at that. Clearing his throat, he confided, "Actually, Mousse told me his plan. He asked for my 'blessings' and asked me to help him also. I did not think he would actually challenge her until I gave him an answer."

            "He might not have. I get the idea, from what Cologne said, that my idea for getting us all back to Jusenkyo set him off." Ranma quickly outlined the plan to use the compact to ferry everyone to China, via Mousse Air. "He wants to have a claim to her before she gets anywhere near the amazon council."

            "Ah. That makes sense." Fa Shen frowned hard at the girl. "There's something bothering you. Something you're not telling me," he accused gently.

            Ranma flushed deeply. "I don't know how to tell you. It, ah… has to do with healing Ranko. What it takes to heal her."

            "Is there a problem? Will it endanger her?" Fa Shen worried. 

            "It might freak her out, but she doesn't need to know about it. No one does. I discovered a way to recharge her ki, but I can't do it alone, and… well, she uses ki from both of us, so… you're sorta the only person who can help me," Ranko was skirting around the point, unable to say it straight out.

            "I don't understand. I mean, sure, I'll help you. Just teach me what to do and I'll be happy to donate my ki too!" Fa Shen smiled, delighted to hear that there was something he could actually do to help Ranko. It was something he had resumed worrying about when he came down from Tofu's apartment. 

            "Yeah, well. Thing is, you DON'T understand, and I don't want you to freak out," Ranma hunched, still refusing to meet Fa Shen's eyes. 

            This evasiveness fully roused Fa Shen's suspicions. Ranma was implying that, while there was a cure for Ranko, something they could do, Fa Shen was not going to like it. In a careful voice, he declared, "I am not sure if you can understand this, but Ranko is sort of like a daughter to me, Ranma. On a spiritual level, she's like our child. I'm not going to leave her in that condition if there's anything I can do about it. So, stop beating around the bush and just tell me, exactly, what we have to do to cure her."

            Ranma cringed and took a deep breath. "Last night, when I got home and talked to Ranko, she noticed that I transferred some ki to her when I touched her. Somehow, something I had done had generated or freed up some loose ki," Ranko began, building up to it. "I had an idea what might have caused it. There was something, uh… I woke up in the middle of something the other Ranko started. The only way to check if it had something to do with that was to check Ryouga, since he had been… he did it too. When I learned that he had the same kind of loose ki built up, I knew what generated it."

            Fa Shen frowned. From her acquired memories, Ranma and Ryouga tended to fight, but last night "Ranko" and Ryouga had been on a date. Her own expertise in the area of manipulating ki, or rather the studies she undertook to master it, suggested only one sort of activity that could result in what Ranma was describing. "You had sex with Ryouga," he droned in flat shock.

            Ranma nodded. "It was happening as I woke up. I was too… ah… blown away to even think until way after it was over. It wasn't me… I…" she shuddered and her head bowed to her chest. 

            Fa Shen blinked and stared. "You're saying we have to have sex to heal Ranko." The boy gulped as Ranma nodded faintly. Half of his mind was whirling in absolute shock that either of them should have awakened in such a compromising position. Worse, he had been wishing all night long that they had woken up in the opposite bodies. If Fa Shen's wish had been granted, it would have been HER confronted with that awakening! Without thinking, he flowed over to Ranma and pulled her into a sympathetic embrace. Fa Shen would have reached out to any girl who had been taken that way unawares, but if she was also a boy in her own mind!? "Oh, Ranma…!" he moaned in sympathy.

            "Gyaaaaa! Not this very minute!!!" Ranma pounded Fa Shen hard in the chest, sending him flying across the room. She stood up in terror, panting, unable to believe the news would provoke such an amorous response.

            Fa Shen righted himself and glared across the waiting room. "You idiot! I was trying to console you! You think I wanted to…!?" Fa Shen almost gagged.

            "Jeez! First you say, 'we have to have sex…' then you jump on me and start moaning my name!? What was I supposed to think!" Ranma shouted, face scarlet with fury and embarrassment. 

            From the door, Dr. Tofu cleared his throat and asked, "I am afraid I missed something. WHY is it the two of you need to have sex?" He hoped he could get an explanation of this very surprising development without seeing his clinic destroyed in the process. Ranma and Fa Shen turned to him, all color drained out of their shocked faces, and then keeled over unconscious. 

Nodoka had returned from the bathroom, where she had proudly displayed the brilliant restoration of her natural hair color to Ranko and Kasumi, before Cologne could explain her pronouncement. Confronted with Nodoka's own questions at this sudden miracle, pleading for an explanation of how the "blessed" water could have affected her, Cologne begged for a moment to reflect. As she worked out in her head how to reveal what she had discovered, people awakened by Nodoka's rush through the house, exclaiming the miracle, had filtered into the Tea Room in confusion. Ryouga, surprised by Nodoka while trying to find his way out of the closet under the stairs, was the first to arrive—still in plaintive search of the bathroom. Shampoo soon followed, trailed by Nabiki, Ukyo, Soun, and Genma—still in panda form and looking shell shocked. The last to arrive were the damp and hastily dressed Ranko and Kasumi. Seeing her oldest sister struggling to half carry Ranko in to the table, Akane rushed over to help. With each arrival, the volume of querying voices rose until Cologne finally shouted for silence. 

            "Now that everyone is present, I suppose I can explain what has happened to Nodoka. With your permission, of course," she deferred to the matriarch of the Saotome Clan. Nodoka nodded eagerly. Cologne took a deep breath and proceeded to tell the history of Togenkyo and the powers of the water naturally distilled from the Great Tree that was the backbone of the floating island. "Hundreds of years ago, the island kingdom drifted along the coasts of China and word of the water's power to transform animals into men and cause the women who ingested it to bear only sons spread through the mainland. For many, the water was sought to ensure the birth of suitable male heirs, but the enemies of the Jokezoku saw this as a way to destroy us from within. 

            "Initially, we were caught unaware," Cologne frowned, recalling the seeming tragedy she had witnessed. "While strange, there seemed no reason to suspect foul play was responsible for the birth of only male children for an entire generation. It was never uncommon for us to bring in strong women from outside to sustain our ranks. We suspected nothing until a foe used the water against a full grown warrior and turned her into a man.

            "Once other explanations were ruled out, and it was established that it was the water of Togenkyo that was responsible, we devoted our resources to developing a cure or antidote to restore that woman to normal. In a few years, we succeeded," Cologne smiled, indicating the bottle before her on the table. "This antidote could reverse the transformation, and we learned of a taint that marked those who had been exposed to Togenkyo water. In most cases, the taint was revealed by a change of hair color in both the mother and the child. This allowed us to restore all of the boys born in the new generation who had been conceived as girls." 

            Nodoka blinked and once again studied her hair. "Does this mean…?"

            Cologne turned to Nodoka, and gave her an odd smile. "It seems that even in this day and age, there are those who will do anything for a son. I know this might be difficult for you to face, but there is an even chance that your son should have been your daughter."

            "Oh! No! How could this have happened!?" Nodoka cried. 

            Cologne sighed and glanced over at Genma briefly. "If you were not aware of taking any special measures to birth a son, perhaps you need to speak to your husband. Or perhaps his Master."

            Akane stared at Ranko and gulped, "But…"

            Nabiki spoke right over her, laughing, "You mean, Ranma might actually be a girl!?" She gave Ranko an ear-tickling grin and winked, before rolling over in gut-wrenching hysterics. 

            Soun blinked slowly, several times before turning to Nodoka. "I hesitate to ask, Nodoka, but… if Ranma IS in fact a girl…" he blanched, "Is he still bound by your contract with Genma?"

            Nodoka was just staring at the bottle in shock. Genma was even more arrested. Neither breathing or moving, the panda held one paw to its heart, waiting for it to beat again. Finally Nodoka ground her head around to look at Cologne. "Is such a thing even possible!?" she demanded in a small voice. Cologne nodded gravely, trying not to look at Ranko. 

            Ranko herself was staring at the bottle, putting things together in her head, and striving not to pass out. Without a word, she lay back and covered her face. Not surprisingly, her movement caught Nodoka's attention. 

            "Are you alright, Ranko?" Nodoka asked in immediate concern, grateful for the distraction. As she moved to the girl's side, Ukyo and Shampoo exchanged glances, looked at Ranko, and then silently rose and walked out through the open shoji into the back yard. A moment later, Akane jumped up and followed them out. Mousse, now fully aware of what had happened, what might now happen, grabbed Ryouga and dragged him off to the bathroom. Nodoka gave a confused look at the sudden exodus of young people and returned her gaze to Ranko, still waiting for an answer. "Ranko?"

            "'M fine," she finally breathed. "I feel a little dizzy though…"

            Nodoka repositioned herself at the girl's side and suddenly realized something. "Wait. You… this was the medicine you used on Ranko?" she turned to meet Cologne's eye. Cologne kept her eyes level but said nothing. Nodoka frowned, "Was- was it the correct medicine? Why did Ranko need an antidote for water that turns things male?"

            Cologne saw only the slimmest way out of telling the actual truth. Like any good lie, part of the truth would suffice. "I was not aware of such a need. It is purely a coincidence that it was beneficial in her case," Cologne admitted. 

            Nodoka felt an ache begin at the back of her eyes and quickly pinched the bridge of her nose. When her vision cleared, she looked down at Ranko, who had moved her hand to stare up at her. For the thousandth time, she was struck by how similar she was in appearance to Nodoka herself at the same age. For the first time, she was capable of drawing the obvious conclusion. With her eyes suddenly as wide as saucers, she gasped. "Oh! No! It can't be!" she moaned, tentatively reaching down and taking the girl's face in her hands. "A-are y-you… Are you my s-son?" she begged in a horrified whisper.

            Ranko could not look away. Her head was in a firm grip, her mother's face lowered to the point where she could not effectively look away. In the background, Genma finally keeled over unconscious with a resounding boom. Unwilling to close her eyes, Ranko licked her lips and… smiled in sudden relief. "No. I am not Ranma," she stated clearly and honestly. Taking a deep breath, she added, "I've had days when I thought other wise, but that was an effect of the curse."

            Nodoka sagged, unintentionally resting her forehead on Ranko's. "Dear Ranko, forgive me. It's just… you… From the look of you, you really could be my daughter. With what I just heard…" she pulled the pair of them back up and hugged Ranko, unable to complete her sentence. 

            "That's okay, M- Mrs. Saotome. I understand," Ranko hugged back limply. Even though she had dissociated herself from Ranma, there was enough of him in her for her to nearly panic under these circumstances. When Nodoka held her back and looked into her eyes again, Ranko had to ask, "Not to be rude or anything, but… if I had been Ranma…" She bit her lip and then forced herself to continue, "Would you have made me do it?"

            Nodoka looked puzzled for a moment. She heard a strangled sound from Nabiki and glanced over to see Cologne pantomiming seppuku to illustrate Ranko's question. Nodoka's eyes widened in instant comprehension, and she snapped back to look at Ranko. Instead of saying the first thing that came to mind, she composed herself. Reminding herself sternly that there was a reason, above and beyond the contract, why it was necessary for her to have a true son, she took a more aggressive approach. "Are you asking to satisfy curiosity, or is this another attempt to protect my son?"

            Ranko winced and bit her lip. Carefully, she pointed out, "I heard what Cologne said. I wouldn't want to see Ranma die just because he turned out to be a girl, especially if it's not his fault. Especially," she emphasized, "if that's what he was supposed to be in the first place!" 

            "You don't understand…" Nodoka began. 

            "What's to understand!?" Ranko cried, long held anger over the contract overcoming the shock of Cologne's latest revelation. "Male or female, he's still your child! How could you ever hold something like this over his head!?" Ranko roared, growing red in the face. 

            "Why are you so angry?" Nodoka flinched back, honestly confused. 

            "Why is it so important for Ranma to be a man!?"

            "It- That… It's supposed to be, 'Man-Among-Men'," Nodoka corrected automatically. Then she scowled and shot back, "And, as far as that stupid contract goes, that was not my idea! Genma, my husband, wrote that contract, and badly at that, to guarantee he would not violate my promise to my father, to bear and raise a true man! A man who could…" she cut herself off. That was not to be spoken of.

            "Could what?" Cologne gently prodded. 

            Nodoka turned on her and almost shouted, before composing herself once more. "That is a private matter, and it only applies to Ranma if he lives up to his potential as a man."

            "What kind of man? What does Man-Among-Men mean, if I may ask. As an amazon, I am afraid the concept is rather foreign to me," Cologne maintained, unflinching. 

            Nodoka pulled herself up and stated, firmly, "A true man can be recognized by many traits, but he does not possess them through acquisition. A true man does not strive to measure up, but to surpass measure, and so it would be an error to name his expectations. To attempt to define him is to deny him the most important trait, that being for him to define himself. To call him a Man-Among-Men is to say that he is recognized by his peers, for he stands out even among his own kind. If there is a virtue that defines manhood, he exemplifies it."

            Cologne smiled evenly, "Indeed, that is an impressive standard. One I am well familiar with, as it is the same standard upheld by the amazons, though we do not regard these virtues the exclusive property of men."

            "I suppose you are missing the point," Nodoka sighed. "While I believe women should aspire to equal heights, when possible, what woman can embody the qualities of a man? How could my son, if he were to be revealed as a woman?"

            "In which case, he should simply die?"

            Nodoka crumpled. In a tired voice, she rattled, "In such a case it becomes apparent that I failed from the very start. The whole agreement presupposes that he is a man. If he is otherwise, really a woman in men's clothing, it would not be possible for him to achieve his destiny. The contract can only be valid if he is male. I would have thought being born that way sufficient, but if a glass of water can strip him of that, I cannot see it as a failure of upbringing. If anything it is a misconception in the most literal sense!"

            Ranko interrupted, in an agonized voice. "Even if he is a true man at heart?" She looked into her mother's eyes. It was so difficult not to hear this as Ranma, but at the same time, looking back on her own awakening and the decision she made to be female, for all she was as inclined to be male, she understood something of what Nodoka meant. Still, knowing Ranma as well as she did, she had to speak up for him. 

            Nodoka sighed. "That would depend. He cannot be aware of what we have learned here today. He has lived his life, a boy aspiring to be a man, and if that is never brought into question, and he is proven to be a young man of stature and nobility—a Man-Among-Men—then I may grant him his birthright and fulfill my promise to my father. If instead, he is revealed to be a woman, that birthright must pass on to 'her' son, and so on, until it is fulfilled."

            There was a round of silence.

            "What?" Ranko quailed.

            "If Ranma literally is not a man, if he is my daughter, then my obligation must pass on to her," Nodoka explained. Taking a deep breath, "I would have to find her a suitable husband, and no doubt teach her everything she missed because she was raised as a boy."

            "Why?"

            "It is a debt I carry, and which any daughter of my line must carry until it is repaid," Nodoka stated succinctly. "I can say no more on this."

Outside the Tendo home, and in the furo, two heated conversations were taking place. Certain similarities predominated. As Akane enlightened Ukyo and Shampoo about what had happened that morning and the ultimate cause and consequence, Mousse was endeavoring to relate the same details to Ryouga. The simplest details, confirmed by the shift in Nodoka's hair color and Ranko's continued existence after a hot bath, proved that Ranko was now, entirely, a girl. The question however, was, since she got that body from Ranma, did that mean Ranma was supposed to be a girl? As far as the amazons, and Ryouga were concerned, it was a strong argument. Among the amazons, because of the abuse of Togenkyo water, it was established that the gender of a child was that determined upon conception. Ryouga did not have any such excuse, just the vivid memory of the previous night. Since none of these five had listened to the rest of the discussion with Nodoka, they had no idea what the outcome of Ranma being exposed at this point would be.

            "I think it's best that Ranma stays Ranneko for now," Akane declared. 

            "Shampoo agree, is best," nodded the purple head. 

            "I don't believe it! After all of this, the person I'm engaged to is a girl!" Ukyo wanted to strangle something. Instead she sighed, "Well, this really eliminates the differences between Ranma and Ranko. No engagement can hold up if the truth comes out about Ranma. I don't see any reason not to continue pursuing Ranko just because she's stuck as a girl."

            "Shampoo so confused, not know if Ranko even want be boy again, but still love. Shampoo want castrate Mousse for trying take Ranko!" she growled.

            "So, it doesn't bother either of you that Ranko is…? Well, she's a girl. Even if she gets a guy curse like Ranma's supposed to get, she's not going to ever give up her girl side. And you both still want her?" Akane challenged, plaintively. 

            "Is any different for Kitchen Destroyer?"

            "Well, I don't know," Akane frowned. Did loving a girl make, well, loving her alright? She shook her head. "I'm just sort of confused. I sort of feel like I'd have to get cursed to be a guy too, if I wanted to be with her."

            The other girls stared at her.

            "I think maybe you're taking things a bit too far, sugar," Ukyo crooned. 

            "I didn't say I wanted to!" Akane fumed. She fell back into uncertainty. "It has more to do with being fair, or balanced. I mean, you're both talking like you want to marry her. Can you DO that if you're both girls!?"

            That stumped her rivals. 

            "Is can happen in amazon tribe," Shampoo said meekly. 

            "Is that what she wants?" Akane retorted weakly. 

            "Akane, if you don't want that kind of relationship, no one is going to think less of you for letting Ranko go. Hell, most people around here will expect it. Whatever your problem is, don't criticize us for following our hearts," Ukyo shook the other girl lightly. 

            Akane huffed. "Look, at the moment none of us even knows if there's a chance. That's the only reason we're not fighting like usual. All of the promises, laws and excuses are gone. We're the closest thing Ranko has to friends. Before we go back to killing each other and making her miserable, why can't we stop and think about what we're doing and why?" she pleaded.

            "Dammit, Akane," Ukyo crossed her arms in chagrin. 

            "Well, I am right, aren't I?" Akane clasped her hands in front of her lap.

            "Shampoo not have to give up yet. No want to. Always can be friends with Ranko, but now is only hope be more. Not fair you ask Shampoo stop love her Airen. Not not fair!" the amazon sat down in the grass and looked inward sadly. She pulled up a handful of grass then watched the morning breeze blow the green blades from her open palm. 

            "Fine, but, what about Ranma? Do either of you plan to be friends with her? If she can keep the past a secret and go back to being a boy, will you eventually give up on Ranko and start chasing him?"

            "Among amazon womans, Ranma woman, no matter what form. Is same Shampoo marry Ranko or Ranma."

            "Look at me, Akane," Ukyo gestured at the male clothing she habitually wore. "I've spent so much time trying to be a boy I can't help myself. Hell, maybe I would get a nanniichaun curse for Ranko. If that's what it takes, do you really think I wouldn't?"

            Shampoo hugged her knees and buried her face in them. "No is fair! Amazon womans is normal no can have nanniichaun curse! Shampoo no can be perfect Airen to Ranko!"

            "Good grief! What have I started!?" Akane reeled back. "Look, guys, I was just making a point. If every person who wanted Ranm… Ranko… Hell, either of them! If people got cursed just so they had a hope of getting close to them, there wouldn't be a normal guy or girl left in Nerima!"

            In the furo, the boys were making no more progress than the girls outside. Mousse was taking advantage of Ryouga's second thoughts about Ranma to undermine his interest in Ranko.

            "Look, you've already slept with Ranma," Mousse finally pointed out. "I heard what you were muttering last night when I led you out to the dojo. Frankly, I am happy for you, Ryouga. I know she hurt your feelings, but give her a break. Waking up like that? It has to give her some doubts."

            Ryouga almost blew up. Instead, he dropped into a dangerous whisper. "Mousse, you don't know half of what you are talking about. It was Ranko who slept with me, or a part of her, and Ranma popped in right in the middle of it. She told me clear enough she wants to be a boy again, that she doesn't love me. She all but pushed me over to Ranko. So, don't even think I am going to stand aside and let you have your way with her!"

            "So, if Ranma means nothing to you, if all you care about is Ranko, why do you flinch every time someone mentions Ranma's name?"

            "Don't, Mousse. Don't go there."

            "Where should I go then? What? Now that you've broken her in, you think I should go after Ranma instead? That way you can keep Ranko's cherry for yourself?" Mousse had to drive it in.

            Ryouga roared and once more went to wring the blind martial-artist's neck. "You just don't know when to stop, do you!" He hammered the boy's face with the slow, powerful blows of a pile driver and all the passion of such a machine. 

            Mousse croaked, trying to get out a response. Ryouga loosened his grip slightly, daring the other boy to say something else. Mousse obliged. "Just- just like… you don't… kn-know how to f-finish… what you s-st-start!"

            Ryouga dropped him and barked, "What?"

            Mousse caught his balance and rubbed his throat. Staring the other boy in the eye, he accused, "You didn't even know there was anyone BUT Ranma until you got home. Yeah, sure, you called your girl Ranko, but in your mind it was still Ranma. Even Ranko didn't know the truth. You fell in love with someone you knew was a boy to start with. You fell in love with Ranma. You got her in the sack, stupid, and you think you can just walk away?"

            Ryouga stared at him in confusion. 

            "Idiot," Mousse spat, wiping his mouth. "You're so wound up over Ranma, you immediately jump in and play white knight for Ranko, thinking you can escape the pain of being dumped. Let me tell you, if plan to really love a girl, you better toughen up your heart, because they can tear it to pieces just because THEY'RE afraid of getting hurt." 

            "I don't understand…"

            "Think! If she really didn't care about you, why would she hurt you so bad you are afraid to be near her?" Mousse poked him hard in the chest. Shaking his bruised finger, reminding himself not to do that again, he added, "She drove you away to protect herself." 

            "Why?" Ryouga whined, in a sudden resurgence of pain. 

            "Ryouga," Mousse suddenly took pity on him. "She just learned she is expected to become a guy again. A guy who has to kill himself if he's found 'unmanly' by his mother. She can't afford to love you, thinking that."

            Ryouga wanted to bash his skull into something. He should have figured that out himself. Mousse should not have had to risk his own neck to point out what Ryouga knew damn well himself. He loved her. Ranma. The boy he hated was the girl he loved. As soon as she started slipping back toward being that boy, he had instantly recovered that hate. "Damn him."

            Mousse sighed. He had gotten through to Ryouga. 

            "That doesn't mean I'm gonna let you have your way with Ranko," Ryouga growled. 

            Mousse whimpered. Very slowly, very carefully, he explained his exact intentions, the scheme he had cooked up to prove himself to Shampoo. For that to work, his challenge to Ranko had to be legitimate, and it had to be won before the council could rule over her status, her right to claim a wife or a husband. It was a rare opportunity that only came as the result of an amazon warrior being reincarnated as a man. Until her gender was officially declared, it was a way for a man and woman suiting her to obtain equal status. 

            Ryouga stared at the other boy. Glaring, he commented, "If you want to have a chance with Shampoo, there's one thing you would still need to do."

            Mousse, certain he had thought of everything, demanded, "What?"

            Ryouga plucked the glasses off of Mousse's face and waved them under his nose. "You might wanna see about getting your eyes fixed. Glomping everything in sight, and calling inanimate objects 'My Beloved' isn't a good way to impress someone."


	33. Cures and Confrontations

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Thirty-Three: Cures and Confrontations

In light of Nodoka's response to Cologne's probing, it seemed obvious that if Ranma's identity were revealed in her current form she would be doomed to spend the rest of her life as a woman. With a minimum of encouragement, Kasumi was left to keep Nodoka distracted helping make breakfast while Nabiki rounded up all of the teens and assembled them in the dojo to bring them up to speed. Genma was revived by Soun and rushed into the training hall as well, since the panda had been unconscious through much of the morning scene. There was a little debate about finding Ranma and Fa Shen and having them hear this too, but no one knew where they were. Or rather, Mousse decided not to inform everyone that Fa Shen slept at Dr. Tofu's and Ranma had gone over to discuss some sexual healing. He could just imagine the chaos if someone interrupted that particular conversation! However, before the father's could bring the meeting to order, Ranko pounced—or angrily flopped—on Cologne, demanding an explanation of her own condition.

            "You used that antidote stuff on me instead of Chisuiiton water!?" she shouted. "How could that lock my curse!? What's going on!?"

            "Calm down, child," Cologne begged. With her staff, she pushed the half limp girl onto her rear and arranged her limbs so she could balance herself sitting upright, Indian fashion. "I thought I dropped enough details for you to figure this out for yourself. It was not easy to explain without completely tipping your mother off."

            "Geez, Ranko. You honestly haven't figured it out?" Nabiki jabbed. 

            "What's to figure out!? It sounds like Pops doped Mom to get a son!" she cried, glaring at Genma. "What do you have to say for yourself, Old Man!?"

            Genma reached for a sign and proceeded to write in an even more unsteady scrawl than normal. Akane picked up the kettle Soun had brought in and dumped hot water over the panda's head, scowling. 

            "Try being a man for once in your life!" she grated menacingly.

            Genma swallowed and went into classic Saotome denial gestures, "Now, wait. It's not my fault…" Blows rained down as Ryouga, Shampoo, Ukyo and Akane demonstrated the effectiveness of their trademark blunt instruments. Genma crawled out from under the pile of mallet, giant spatula, mallet and umbrella and started again. "Don't any of you know how to show your elders some respect!?" he shouted. A wall of narrow eyes and hefted weapons stared him down. Sagging, he continued, "I will admit as much as expressing my desire to have a son to my old Master, Happosai…" There was a collective groan, as he confirmed the worst. "Please, try to understand. Nodoka and I were married around the same time Soun wed his beloved wife. He was already the proud father of two beautiful daughters and my greatest concern was that Nodoka might be barren and our dream of uniting the two schools would never come to pass," he protested, eyes tearing dramatically.

            "Spare us the sob story, Pops! Get to the point!"

            "Very well, 'Boy'!" he huffed at his "daughter". "I will say now that the first I ever heard of Togenkyo water was our recent adventure with Prince Toma. That said, my master gave me a flask of water and instructed me to administer three drops a day in Nodoka's food or drink, for a month. She would then be ready to produce a son. He warned me that the water contained a powerful medicine; any more than the prescribed amount could endanger Nodoka's health, and I was careful to follow the instructions exactly. As promised, Nodoka became pregnant a month later and eventually gave birth to my son."

            "Too bad that was the only time you ever followed instructions," Ranko muttered bitterly. She looked down at herself and cleared her throat. "This is the body that Ranma was born in. Since I didn't die in the bath, I suppose that means… What exactly? I mean, even if the antidote worked, I was a girl when you used it. How did it block the curse?"

            Cologne took a deep breath and perched on her staff again. "There was one detail I left out, because of Nodoka. A few of the girls restored by the antidote had the misfortune, as boys, to become cursed. When the antidote restored their natural forms, the curses disappeared. As these were animal curses, no one expected such a thing to happen. However," Cologne paused dramatically. Seeing she had everyone's full attention, she continued, "One of the things that made it possible to cure the Togenkyo transformation, which seemed permanent, was the fact that it masked the true form of it's subject and did not use her ki in the transformation. Like most antidotes, the cure is in the poison, so the cure uses the same magic to unmask the subject's true form. Now, it seems that a Jusenkyo curse is rooted in the form of the victim. When those 'boys' were cursed, the curse attached itself to the mask. Once the mask was removed, the curse went with it."

            Ranko looked at herself again. "Wait. This is Ranma's true form? How? It's exactly the same as the cursed form!" she cried. Then she did a double take, "Wait. This means… I am cured?"

            Cologne hummed thoughtfully. "It is true, you are now just a normal girl. No boy mask, no curse. As for why you have the same form as Fa Shen," she shrugged. "Some souls have a preference for a certain appearance, so it is not unusual to see them reincarnated identical to their former selves. How it happened in this case, I have only one conjecture. It has been noted that victims strongly marked by Fa Shen in the nyanniichaun tended to produce offspring with the same features. From that, and some things your mother said, I would guess that your mother is descended from, or perhaps even is, one of those victims."

            Ranko boggled. More than once, the resemblance of Ranko to Nodoka at the same age had been mentioned. Now that Nodoka's hair was revealed to be the same brilliant crimson, the resemblance was only stronger. Shaking her head, she mused, "I doubt Mom was cursed. She would have suspected the truth right away if she had been. Still… Her mom?" Ranko shrugged. Having learned that her mother's parents were dead, there was no way to find out. 

            Cologne waved the question off, for the same reason. "We cannot know. What we do know, however, is that this is good news for you, Ranko!" she smiled finally. Ranko decided she had gotten used to Cologne. She didn't flinch from the terrifying grimace the expression produced on her shrunken, wrinkled head. Ranko, like the others, scratched her head and exchanged random glances, unable to see how there was an upside to this discovery, so Cologne just rolled her eyes and voiced it, unprompted. "You're taking all the fun out of being a wise old woman! Ranko. Your curse was the last tie to the Mirror of Broken Souls."

            This stunned the crowd. 

            "Congratulations, Ranko! You survived it!" Akane was the first to get it. 

            "It… it's over?" Ranko blinked in disbelief. 

            "I knew you could do it, sugar!" Ukyo pushed forward to hug her. 

            "Shampoo so so glad for Ranko!" she delivered with a full body glomp.

            "Old Woman! Are you certain of this!?" Genma demanded. At Cologne's nod, Genma turned to hug Soun. "Do you hear that old friend? We can go to Jusenkyo at once! It is safe to travel!"

            "This is wonderful news, Saotome-kun! I am so happy for you! And, once Ranma is back to normal, we can return home and celebrate with a big wedding!" the Tendo patriarch cried out, showering tears over the crowd. With a collective shout, the group darted out of range of the waterworks muttering. Even though the dousing was harmless, Ranko sighed her thanks to Shampoo and Ukyo for swiftly dragging her out of the spray.

            "Um…!" Akane blurted out. "What if Ranma… er… wants to remain a girl?" she asked in a voice that grew more timid as eyes fixed on her.

            "What is this? What can you mean, Akane?" Soun bawled. 

            "Well, we did just learn he was supposed to be a she…" Akane fidgeted. "Doesn't that mean… well, doesn't that give her a choice?" As she was saying this, she was looking at Ryouga. Call it women's intuition, but she had the feeling that something might have been started between those two. The odd way Ranma had blushed and stammered over the oddest things, after returning from her date… Even if the real Ranma had woken up in the middle of it, he had obviously slipped under the influence of the memories he had gotten. 

            "Why would my son want to be a girl!?" Genma growled. 

            Akane cringed. "For one thing, his mother won't force him to kill himself if he really is a she."

            Nabiki barked a short laugh, "Come on, Akane! Are you sure you aren't just saying that to get out of the engagement?" That was enough to cause both fathers to instantly ignore Akane's input. To everyone's surprise, however, Ukyo suddenly spoke up.

            "You know, Akane is right. I'm not saying we should push him to be a girl, but, doesn't he deserve to know he has a choice? I mean, if you keep this a secret, give him a male curse and lock him in it, and he finds out later… I mean, it's as bad as lying to Nodoka all this time!" she marched up and got in Genma's face. "Is that your notion of honor, Genma!? Lie to your wife, lie to your son, lie to everyone around you so you get what you want and no one holds you responsible!?" Ukyo was shaking in subdued anger. It was never far from her mind that it was Genma who was truly responsible for screwing up her life. 

            Genma scowled. "What would a little girl like you know about honor? Look at you, dressing like a man, running away from your own family… You don't even know your own place, so don't think you can put me in mine," he foolishly wasted his week's allowance of spine in a retaliatory effort to shame the unwanted fiancée. 

            Ukyo snarled, her vision going red, and whipped her knee into Genma's groin with all the strength she possessed. Staring down at him, after he curled over and dropped to his side, she spat, "Is that womanly enough for you!? Since you cost me my womanhood, maybe I should return the favor, huh?"

            Genma whimpered and tried to squirm away from her. 

            "Oh, yeah. He definitely had that coming," the other teens noted.

            Turning to Akane, Ukyo grinned darkly, "If you don't mind, I think I am going to hold on to my claim to Ranma a little longer. I don't see any reason to make things any easier for that old fool!" She turned back to the injured man, "Do you hear that Old Man! Ranma is as much my fiancé as he is Akane's. You better think twice before you start makin' plans for Ranma's life for him. You can't even fix the mess you've created!"

            As Ukyo went to storm out of the dojo, Akane stopped her gently with a hand on her shoulder. As Ukyo stared at her, Akane offered a faint smile. "Thanks, Ukyo. I know this sounds weird, but, I think that actually helps," she whispered, trying to keep anyone else from hearing. As Akane returned her attention to the crowd, she noticed Ryouga glaring at Mousse, with what appeared to be a thick dish towel stuffed in his mouth. Mousse was shaking the almost immovable boy and softly lecturing him. Heading over to step in and prevent bloodshed, well aware of the lost boy's quick temper—Ranma had so often exploited it!—she was surprised to see Ryouga suddenly calm down and nod before she arrived.

            "What's going on?" she hissed, stepping between them. 

            "Why, nothing at all!" Mousse smiled falsely.

            Ryouga mumbled around the towel and then pulled it out. "Don't worry Akane. It's nothing, really," he grinned nervously. 

            Akane glared suspiciously, "Are you two still fighting over Ranko?"

            They both shook their heads insistently. Shampoo was suddenly at their side, "Stupid Mousse and Lost Boy better leave Ranko alone!"

            "You know I can't do that!" Mousse frowned, tracking by voice to look at Shampoo. "I will wait for her to recover, but after that, I will fight her. You cannot interfere, Shampoo."

            "Why you be like this, Mousse? Mousse know no can beat Ranko! She too too strong for weak boy like you!" Shampoo twisted her question into a taunt.

            "We shall see, Shampoo. We shall see," Mousse turned and dragged Ryouga outside, leaving Akane and Shampoo to look at each other. 

            "So, what Kitchen Destroyer do now?" Shampoo demanded. 

            "Me?" Akane straightened, tucking her fists behind her back as she checked her anger at the constant insult Shampoo named her with. "I am going to go eat breakfast and then I am going to school. Oh," Akane added, just before walking out of the dojo, "just a thought, Shampoo. Ranko's all girl now. To get rid of you, all she has to do is stay that way. What do you think your council will make of that?"

            Shampoo stood there and gaped as Akane exited. "What that suppose to mean?" she whined. 

            "It means, dear child, you might want to think twice about harassing Ranko to be a man by throwing yourself at her constantly," Cologne observed, having followed Shampoo over to keep her from coming to blows with Mousse. From the way he had been acting, Mousse might no longer meekly accept one of Shampoo's beatings, and if he chose to defend himself, a matrimonial battle might quickly result. Whatever his shame, if an amazon warrior attacked him and he succeeded in defeating her, the result was valid and his shame was absolved. He might not have to win Ranko to achieve his ultimate goal. "Come along, Shampoo. We have a business to run."

            "What about Mousse?"

            "I believe Mousse will be focused on training for a while, and it would be best if the two of you had a break from each other. Now, let's stop dawdling." Brooking no further argument, she ushered the girl to their home. That left Nabiki, Ranko and their fathers, one of whom was leaning over the other and uttering empty platitudes to soothe his pain. 

            "Hey, Pop? Why don't you have a special technique to defend against that? You know, like Fierce Gophers Tunneling Under Earth Technique, or Majestic Mountain Oyster Harvest Leaping Frog Defense? Huh? Huh?" Ranko prodded the fallen man, gesturing expansively to illustrate the hypothetical techniques, grinning evilly. Nabiki tabulated the various remarks and statements she had overheard and decided she was rubbing off on too many people. They were beating her to all the good lines! With a sigh of frustration, and a wry grin, she grabbed Ranko and dragged her inside for breakfast. 

There are certain moments in people's lives when waking up is a truly horrifying prospect. Given the memories Ranma and Fa Shen shared, it would seem that this should be a familiar feeling, but without a doubt, they were now experiencing the worst version of this phenomenon. In fact, as they blinked and wondered if Dr. Tofu had really overheard their conversation, it seemed impossible to imagine a worse prospect than having to explain themselves to him. Naturally, they were wrong. The diminutive form bouncing around with big eyes, repeatedly demanding, "Is it true!? Is it true!?" proved that whatever Happosai had lost to age, hearing was not on the list. Blacking out a second time was definitely called for, and when they were roused by Tofu again, they were much better prepared for the coming ordeal. They refused to comment on what the two men overheard until Happosai swore to listen to the full explanation and never, ever, betray their confidence. If he did, the next time he was incapacitated the pair promised they would use the opportunity to finish him off for good. With little hope that would keep him in check, they proceeded to explain what really happened when Ranma was cursed, and how Ranma and Fa Shen had finally emerged from Ranko's shadow.

            "So, let me see if I understand this," Happosai interrupted, seeming to have entered his serious mode. Pointing at Fa Shen, he began, "Fifteen hundred years ago, you were drowned at Jusenkyo, creating the Nyanniichaun." Pointing at Ranma, he continued, "This was your original form, and because Ranma is a reincarnation of you, you were able to possess him and escape your grave. But, Ranma fought and the two of you slipped into some sort of coma, and Ranko was born. Even though she was a combination of both of you, she thought she was Ranma until this mirror thing let her shake off his identity. Now, last night, you," he pointed back at Fa Shen, "woke up, you fought Ranko for control of her body and dragged her down where the two of you found and released Ranma." He turned back to the girl and frowned, "Okay, so, why did you end up the girl, while Fa Shen, here, become the boy?"

            "It was an accident. The mirror left some connection in Ranko's mind to the reflections. When we found the echoes, we assumed… well, I assumed I had found Ranma," Fa Shen explained, jerking a thumb at Ranma. "Instead, I sort of passed through the image and ended up in this body."

            "I see. I take it you can't switch back?" Happosai asked. Ranma shook her head and Fa Shen explained how they had carried their ki with them and left Ranko on the brink of death. Without them to recharge her ki, it could take her years to recover from their separation. "Ah! Well, I might be able to help you there! I know a little something about charging up ki!" Happosai puffed up proudly.

            "Uh, actually, we already found a solution," Ranma blushed. The two men looked at her in surprise and urged her to explain. With a sigh, she tried, "Well, I woke up sorta like Fa Shen did, but, uh… under some special circumstances. I didn't think anything of it until I got home and accidentally dumped some ki I had freed up into Ranko. I didn't know I had done it, but when she asked me to think of anything I had done to generate the extra ki, I sorta suspected the answer, and I went and tested somethin' to see if I was right."

            Happosai was frowning in thought. He casually laid a hand on Ranma's knee and suddenly jerked in surprise. He turned to stare at her, and she blushed, having expected him to figure it out. He was a rabid pervert after all! "Ranma-chan! You didn't!?" the old man drooled. 

            "It wasn't my idea, I sorta popped in to something that was, er, already goin' on. That doesn't change the fact that it is the solution to the problem, and since Ranko uses ki from both of us, it's sort of follows that Fa Shen and I have to do that to heal her," Ranma admitted somewhat shamefully. 

            Dr. Tofu, however, had not jumped to any conclusions. He could put it all together, but he wanted it out in the open. "What, exactly, do you and Fa Shen have to do to heal Ranko, Ranma?"

            "We have to have sex together," Fa Shen answered for the girl. 

            Tofu looked them both in the eye, and saw the honesty behind the embarrassment and fear. He closed his eyes and ran through his pool of knowledge, making adjustments for the situation. A few moments later, he came back from his reverie and met their eyes again. "I can see how this would be an effective way to generate a surplus of ki and transfer it to Ranko. However, a common rule of thumb in medicine is, just because the medicine might work are you required to administer it?" He held up a hand to stall protest. "The human body is an amazing thing, and it is far better at healing itself than any outside treatment can compare to in most cases. This is sort of an extended case of that, since the best solution is a natural one. My point is, just because you can do this, does not mean you must do this. There are other concerns you need to address," Tofu insisted.

            "That sounds like you're worried about us, doc," Ranma noted. "Not that I don't appreciate that, it's just… I can't stand to see Ranko so weak and vulnerable! As a martial artist, I have to help if I can. It's not like it's that big a sacrifice, since I've already done it once, and there was nothing I coulda done to prevent it. The worst has already happened."

            Fa Shen noticed the underlying hurt, but was more surprised by the note of confusion. It was as if the worst had been, well, unexpectedly far from bad. Hesitantly, he asked, "Did… did you enjoy it?" Ranma immediately flushed to her roots, her face matching the shade of her hair almost perfectly. 

            Tofu laughed gently, "Ranma, truly it is nothing to be ashamed of. The body is wired for specific sensations—hot, cold; pain, pleasure—and a healthy mind naturally responds to them appropriately." He composed himself and restated his position, "I am not suggesting that there is anything wrong with either of you having sex. I suspect you will enjoy that, since you can hardly help yourselves. I merely point out that this is a, ah, highly unusual situation. Because the pair of you are unwillingly switched to the opposite sex, this activity could easily damage your psyches and leave scars that will never heal. Since the solution to your own problems is to assume a variation of the original curse, and you might always be faced with having two sexes, there is a fair chance that you would eventually engage in sex in your present forms. The only way that can be healthy is if you choose to take that step for your own reasons. If you feel forced into it, you can easily regret it. Don't you agree, Ranma-chan?"

            Ranma gave him a grieved look. "I'm not really that upset about havin' sex. But you're right. I sorta wish I had a choice, but I'm also sorta glad I didn't. I'm more worried that I kinda like it and wanna do it again… but maybe I shouldn't. I think I can still be a man, but I doubt anyone else would see it that way if they knew!"

            Tofu leaned toward her and smiled, "Personally, I agree with you, Ranma. I don't see any reason why being a fully functional woman would keep you from being a fully functional man. At least not when there is an ability like your old curse involved. Every vehicle has it's particular benefits and limitations, but a skilled pilot, so to speak, is comfortable at the controls of any one that suits his needs." He straightened and took in Fa Shen as well, "However, I am not one to encourage anyone to recklessly attempt something they have not properly considered. There are inherent dangers in becoming sexually active, for anyone, and not just you two."

            Ranma smirked, "Yeah, I got that from my Mom too. I got panicked and rushed int… what am I talkin' about!? Damn, fell into the memories again." She frowned and thought for a moment, then shrugged, "What the hell, they're my memories now. This girl," she gestured to herself, "rushed into having sex. Thanks to Mom, we used protection. I'm not gonna get pregnant if I can help it."

            "That is only one danger, Ranma-chan. Some of the dangers can be dealt with through similar precautions, such as preventing disease. Since you two are both healthy, as is Ryouga, that is not a major concern. However, there are also social considerations," Tofu pointed out. "I suppose it's more a matter of perception here, since you are versions of the same being. Still, to most people the pair of you having sex would be considered incest."

            The couple shouted, with wide, staring eyes, "INCEST!?"

            "But, of course you might think of it as closer to masturbation," Tofu modified, emphasizing that any medical professional would assert that was a normal and healthy activity, he pushed on. "Certainly, you have lived different lives, but… You technically share the same body and soul. That said, it really isn't anyone else's business what you do together."

            "Quite so, Tofu, my boy!" Happosai crowed. With a shrug and a wicked look he added, "Not that it isn't human nature for people to poke their noses in things that aren't any of their business, especially around here!" With a wild cackle, he started rubbing Ranma's knee imagining his favorite female in some rather explicit fantasies.

            Ranma, and to an even more violent degree, Fa Shen, shuddered and attempted to squash the dirty old man like a bug. Said bug twisted and hopped, giving each of his assailants a tiny nudge, and suddenly Ranma and Fa Shen found themselves in a rather compromising position. Looking up at Fa Shen, Ranma squeaked in dismay.

            "Ah! Would you get off! You're squishing… Kyaaaa! That's sensitive!"

            "I know!!! Waaaaah! I'msorry! I'msorry! Ahhh! So's that!"

            "Like I don't know that!"

            "Aren't they the perfect couple!?" Happosai purred. 

            "You are not helping, Happosai," Tofu frowned. Reaching out, he wrested Fa Shen's ankle and flipped him off of Ranma. "Now, as I was saying, it is important the two of you think about what you're planning and, unless it's something you're both comfortable with, and you take the necessary precautions, I suggest you find some other way to help Ranko."

            "Well, there's another problem," Ranma sighed, sitting up and straightening her pajamas. "You see, Ranko and me are suddenly amazons 'cuz of Fa Shen, and Mousse challenged Ranko to a marriage duel. He can't do anything 'til she's back to normal, but he has as long as that takes to train. When he really puts his mind to it, he's actually pretty good, and you remember what happened when he fought me when I had the C-C-Cat's Tongue on me."

            Tofu blinked and sighed. "I see. That would make healing Ranko a priority. If I have reservations about young people rushing into sex, that is nothing compared to the feelings I have about them being rushed into marriage. People need the time and freedom to grow up at a healthy pace," he rubbed his hands over his face. While he had much respect for the amazons and their culture, it would do them a lot of good to come out of the stone age in a number of respects. "Unless Happosai has some suggestions for an alternative method, I will have to leave the matter of you two proceeding to your own judgment. Happosai?" he turned to the tiny martial-arts master.

            "I am afraid there's nothing as safe or efficient that I could suggest, short of natural healing. Nothing I could offer would be as quick. A few hot nights in the sack, and bam! Ranko will be back to normal! Can't beat that with all the shiatsu slight of hand in the world!" Happosai grinned. He rubbed his hands and held them out toward the couple in anticipation, as if he were warming them before a fire. 

            They looked at him with nervous laughter. As luck would have it, this was the man fate seemed to have chosen to act as their chaperone. To prove this, Happosai brought up the next big problem. "Well, it would not do for you kiddies to be caught in the act so, what now? We need to think of a nice, private place where you can go to work and fear no interruptions!" Ranma and Fa Shen cringed in terror. Happosai hunched over in thought, before jumping up and holding up the compact in triumph. "It's perfect! We'll put you two in here and I'll guard it so no one goes in or out until it's safe!"

            "Where did you get that?"

            "What? Well, this little toy has proven itself to be an all to convenient way for certain people to stick me out of the way. Do you honestly think I'd leave it just laying around? Certainly not!" he scolded them. 

            They exchanged suspicious looks and demanded, "What's to keep you from tryin' to peak on us and getting trapped inside with us? Huh? Then what?" Shaking their heads, they declared, "No way. Not a chance, you sick pervert!"

            "Good heavens! You wound me!" Happosai clutched his heart. Flipping the compact in the air and tucking it back in his gi, he shrugged, "It's not like I can't imagine it just as well, and honestly, I can't do anything with sexual energy. I could hardly sort the male energy from the female energy, and, personally, the amount of ki that is freed up that way is a million times greater than the residue I normally handle." He shuddered, remembering the debilitating effects of Fa Shen's chi attack. The amount of residual female ki in that attack had probably added twenty years to his life. 

            "Huh?"

            "I mean, it'll be hard enough dealing with the energy that seeps out through the mirror. I would not want to be in there with you. For all I know, that much energy would make me explode," Happosai giggled. What a way to go!

            "Wouldn't that mean…"

            "…that using female ki to sustain himself…"

            "…he made it so he can…"

            "…never have sex?" 

            "It's like listening to twins," Tofu grinned. 

            "Why do you think I avoid Cologne whenever possible, and annoy the hell out of her whenever she gets close?" Happosai demanded. 

            "You find Cologne attractive?" Ranma twitched. 

            Happosai scowled, "Listen, you little whippersnapper! She and I go way back! Besides, it's sort of a matter of scale. What am I supposed to do with a young woman like yourself with boobs bigger than I am!?"

            "Gah! Don't even ask! I don't wanna accidently picture it!" the pair cringed. After a moment, they looked at each other and gaped, "Hey! We're in sync! How the hell…?"

            "Ranma's memories," Happosai yawned. "Get used to it."

            "Ranko's memories!" they corrected primly.

            "A technical distinction after the fact," the old man waved it off. Whipping out the compact again he grinned, "So, you kids ready to rock and roll?" He cracked it open and flashed the mirror in their direction. Ranma, Fa Shen and Tofu all flinched and averted their eyes. 

            "Would you put that away?"

            "If you not getting anything out of it, what are you in such a hurry for?"

            "You are really, really not helping, Happosai."

            "Hey, who said I'm not getting anything out of it! When was the last time I passed on having a pocket full of mischief? I'm doing my civic duty to corrupt the youth, I am standing up for the sexual revolution!"

            "That was almost forty years ago, and it was on another continent to boot! It really is a wonder that no one's managed to kill you yet, Happosai," Tofu rolled his eyes. 

            Happosai looked up at the sky, "Young people today! They have no sense of humor!" He put the mirror away again and composed himself, "Look, I'm a crazy old goat, but I earned that the old fashioned way. When you reach my age you learn to appreciate secret plots and intrigue and do your part to keep things interesting. I'm the last person anyone can be expected to trust, which in turn makes me one of the best people to trust. You wanna do this thing, I'm there to help. Just because I think you should enjoy yourself to the fullest, get as much mileage out of it as you can, doesn't mean I'm not taking this seriously. You need to learn to bend the rules, kids! That's what makes the game interesting! Those fools, Genma and Soun, never could learn that lesson."

            There were no coherent replies.

            "Hell, you too, Dr. Tofu! You're a fine, upstanding, professional young man, but you're wound so tight your brains squirt out your ears the minute you lay eyes on a pretty skirt and you find yourself thinking unlawful things," the little troll accused. "I can see your problem, son, and let me tell you, that little problem with ethics you seem to have concerning one of your patients? Well, that problem could be solved by finding Kasumi another doctor, don't you think?"

            There was no response from behind the doctor's suddenly frosted glasses. The moment he wandered away to "consult" with Betty-chan, the other three cleared the room as fast as possible.

            "It's kind of a shame. He had himself under control almost the whole time he was at the dojo," Fa Shen commented, out on the sidewalk. 

            "What was that about 'ethics'?" Ranma asked Happosai.

            "Oh. Some little bit of nonsense about how doctors should not treat members of their own family, or have too familiar thoughts about their patients. For such a bright lad, he does seem to have a Tendo shaped blind-spot."

            "Oh…" the couple droned in bemusement. 

            "Still, it serves to illustrate the point, kids. If you get all worked up about 'doing the wrong thing' you can lose sight of what the right thing to do is. People are not bonsai trees, you know. It's not in their best interest to be pruned and stunted by years of pointless restriction. It's bad for anyone, but especially bad for a martial artist!" he lectured.

            "You know, there are rare moments when you actually sound like a real sensei, Old Goat!" Ranma accused almost fondly. With a light chuckle, she began leading the way back to the Tendo Dojo. Her inner clock had announced it was time for breakfast, and that overruled all other thought. 

Nodoka had eagerly thrown herself into making breakfast. The things she had learned the previous evening, and that morning, had shaken her deeply. What she had learned was enough to see that a wall of protection had been erected around her son by his friends and fiancées, all trying to defend him against the promise that the mother held over the son. On one hand, it spoke well for her son that the people who loved him would go to such lengths to preserve him, but that they felt it necessary said that there was something terribly wrong with him. It had been revealed that this curse, binding him to Ranko and Ranneko, was responsible for at least outwardly compromising his manhood. As far as that went, an external influence was not a factor in determining his manliness, as long as it was just that. She admitted, she might not have believed such a curse possible, and, if not for the effects she had witnessed in the twin girls, she would have been quick to dismiss it as foolishness. She found she believed in this curse, whatever it was, and since it seemed to have its impact on the minds of those affected, it truly concerned her. Not as much as the possibility that he should have been her daughter, however. 

            All through the meal, a scene of uncommon silence, she had toyed absently with her hair. Occasionally, she reached into her pocket and felt the bottle she now kept there. She had heard the amazons leaving and stopped Cologne to beg for the bottle. The old woman had been unwilling to give it at first, but Nodoka had insisted, hefting her bundled katana and declaring that, as a last resort, she would rather use the antidote as a final test of her son's manhood, if he did not measure up in all other respects. A living daughter was far preferable to a dead son, and Cologne had agreed. 

            Occasionally, she found her attention focused on Ranko. The girl ate her meal quietly and slowly, forced by her weakness to show an approximation of good manners for the first time in memory, without prompting from Nodoka herself. Whenever the girl glanced at Mousse, the amazon boy sitting next to Ryouga, she betrayed a troubled look of concern and annoyance. Her appraisal of Ryouga, the boy who supposedly had a crush on Ranko, there was more hesitation and uncertainty. A faint longing, suggested by the slightest of blushes. Oddly, she had a similar reaction to Akane, slightly better hidden because that girl was sitting attentively beside her and offering every assistance she could. 

            Nodoka wondered if she was catching a glimpse of the curse's effect, a hint of Ranma's feelings toward Akane projected through the red-haired girl. Nodoka suddenly ached to speak to her son, to hear from his own mouth what he was going through and how he felt. Closing her eyes, she silently prayed to the powers above to be granted her greatest wish. If only she could be reunited with him. If only all these troubling questions could be laid to rest. 

            As usual, there was no reply from the heavens, and soon enough Akane and Nabiki were gathering their things and preparing to leave for school. The two boys went out into the yard to spar and Ranko dragged herself to the engawa to watch. Soun lured Mr. Panda to the corner of the room and they started to play shogi—truly an amazing thing to watch, when she thought about it. With a heart felt sigh, Nodoka decided it was time to go home. She quietly excused herself, begging Kasumi to bid her farewells. With her family honor blade resting in the crook of her arm, she drifted to the genkan and slipped on her shoes. Just as she was about to open the shoji enclosing the main entrance to the house, it swept open to reveal Ranko's twin, a gnarled dwarf of a man she sensed she should recognize on sight, and a young man she had only seen in flashes or in dreams. 

            Fa Shen turned from making some comment to Ranma and found himself staring into Nodoka's eyes. However, the brilliant hue of the hair framing her face shook off all thoughts that might have come from Ranma, because there was only one person Fa Shen knew who looked like the woman before her. In a startled, heart wrenching voice, he breathed, "Mother…"

            Nodoka gasped, catching that one word. "Ranma…"

            Ranma gulped and shouted in artificial joy, "Auntie Saotome!" At the same time, she elbowed the boy next to her in the ribs, hard. Praying for all she was worth for him to realize who he was speaking to, she prattled on, "Why, are you going home so soon!?" 

            As intended, she drew Nodoka's attention to herself.

            "Ran… Ranneko! You found my son! Oh, thank you! Thank you!" she reached out and grabbed the two teens and dragged them into the house. Bearing a grin to rival Death's unforgiving smile, Ranma knew that the deadly trap she had been dodging for months, in recently acquired hindsight, had finally closed its jaws on her. With a fearful glance, she studied Fa Shen, seeing the shock and understanding battle on his face as it became clear that he had not miraculously been reunited with his mother, and that he now had to convince Ranma's mother that he was her son, and a Man-Among-Men. A strong memory of how fast Ranma had been dressed in white, ceremonial roles and presented with the instrument of his demise, made it very clear how critical the next few moments were. 

            Nodoka was calling out to everyone, announcing "Ranma's" arrival. For one eternal moment, it was possible to hear the heart beat of the Earth through the silence, then there was a storm of feet rushing to converge on the Tea Room. As Ranma approached and helped Ranko take a seat at the table, she mouthed, "What is she still doing here?" Ranko pressed her lips into a tight white line to keep anything from coming out of her mouth as she faintly shook her head. Fa Shen was escorted to the table and seated by Nodoka, who kept his hand in an iron grip. Nodoka, pleased by what she could see up front, a strong, healthy, handsome young man, turned and hugged him as if he was he only link to life. Fa Shen, instantly identifying with the woman and her loss, returned the hug, opening his mind to the inherited memories. If at all possible, Fa Shen had to be Ranma, for as long as it took for Ranma to reclaim his rightful place. There was no alternative at this point. 

            Ranma, for her part, wanted to curl up and die. The reunion with her mother that she had craved for so long, the chance to prove herself a man, had been suddenly stripped away. It took all her willpower not to scream in denial, shout out the truth, and shove Fa Shen away from her mother. It did not leave enough to stop the tears that immediately spilled down her cheeks. Unable to achieve a similar release, Ranko looked up at Akane and Nabiki, both frozen where they had entered the room. Akane was tearing up and biting her lip, but Nabiki looked like someone had stabbed her in the gut. The mercenary middle sister turned to stare at Ranma and choked at the powerful emotions ripping over the former boy's face. 

            Releasing Fa Shen from the hug, but not letting go of him, she cried, "Oh, Ranma! I am so happy to see you at last! Where is your father!?"

            Fa Shen's eyes flicked over to the panda, frozen in horror at the shogi table, and returned his gaze to Nodoka. "Uh, he… P-Pop i-is… p-pr-practicin' st-strategy a-and t-tactics," he stammered. 

            Nodoka was distracted by an unpleasant pressure on her chest. Looking down slowly, she met the large, dewy eyes of Happosai and shrieked. Automatically, Fa Shen grabbed him by the head and twisted him off of Nodoka's breast and slammed him down hard on the table. The old man's eyes bulged out from the impact, but he popped out of the boy's hand and dusted himself off casually. 

            "Good morning, Nodoka!" he grinned. "It has been some time, hasn't it?" He casually dodged a number of blows from Fa Shen, and a few thrown in by Ranma as well, and his smile widened. "That's a real fine boy you have there. The finest martial artist of his generation, I dare say. I honestly can't believe Genma managed it!"

            "I thought you had been buried alive, Old Man," Nodoka grated dangerously, slipping her katana free of it's wrapping. She rose to her feet, about to unsheathe the sword, when the conversation with "Ranneko" in the bath the night before suddenly came back to her. To help Ranko, Ranma was forced to do something Nodoka could never forgive, something his manhood might not survive. Looking down at the infamous pervert, Nodoka gasped. She glanced at "Ranma" and "Ranneko" and realized they had arrived with her husband's ancient Master. "It's you, isn't it? You're the help Ranma needs to heal Ranko!?" she accused, drawing the blade and parking it's razor tip under Happosai's nose.

            Happosai almost sliced himself, folding over and laughing with delight. "It's true! It is so true! Absolutely amazing, Nodoka! I just can't put one over on you, can I?" 

            "Oh, merciful heaven…" Only the fact that Genma had risen up against the hideous little troll and sealed him away in a cave had kept Nodoka from dissolving their marriage years ago. There were few things Nodoka hated as much as the despicable old pervert. That Ranma might be forced to indenture himself to the same warped man as Genma, to secure his aid, might indeed be an insult to his manhood Nodoka could not forgive. He had left her husband a mere shell of a man, a man who could abduct her only child and abandon his wife if she did not agree to his flimsy contract. A man she missed deeply. With a heart wrenching sob, she challenged, "Has my son accepted you as his sensei!?"

            While Happosai grudgingly frowned and said "No" Ranma, Ranko and Fa Shen shouted an ear splitting "Absolutely not!"

            Nodoka cringed back and studied the three. All three had bolted to their feet, standing rigid with fists clenched and faces in fury, holding identical poses, down to the tremor in their bodies, until Ranko collapsed from exhaustion. "Oh my. You three really are tied together, aren't you?" she asked in bewildered relief. Turning to "Ranma" she asked, "My son. Have you asked Happosai to help you heal Ranko?"

            Fa Shen scratched his head and shrugged, "No. Ran… er, Ranneko and I explained what needed to be done to Dr. Tofu, and he kinda butted in and volunteered to help."

            Nodoka relaxed a bit. Turning to Soun, she demanded, "Can you explain what he is doing here, Soun?"

            "Ah, well, you see. H-he is my M-Master. When he e-escaped from his prison, he came back and… well… I can't make him go away!" Soun sobbed.

            "Why, Soun! I am hurt! When I came back, my room was just as I had left it, aside from the dutiful maintenance of dear, sweet Kasumi!" he turned affectionate eyes on the eldest daughter and fluttered his eyelashes. Turning back, "I think that says something about the dutiful student. Quite a different story from the way I am treated in Saotome's home!"

            "Should you dare to enter it again, I will fulfill my promise to you, Old Man! You are an evil, monstrous predator, and you taint all those you touch! You should know I cannot allow my son to fall under your sway!" she declared. 

            "Nodoka-chan… As always, you are overreacting."

            "That my son rejects your personal authority speaks well of him. The heavens know it was you who brought my fiancé low, and then, as my husband, broke him. I know you, Happosai, and if he has the courage to thwart you, he is a better man than I had hoped."

            Fa Shen gave an evil grin. "You mean you approve of me kickin' his ass!?" He rubbed his hands together and a strange aura began to fill the air. Happosai instantly stiffened in fear. He had sensed it only once before, but he knew damn well what that signaled. 

            "Uh, now, uh… 'Ranma'! There's no need for that!" he placated. 

            Seeing him squirm, Nodoka smiled. The old letch was actually afraid of her son. That was something to make a mother proud!

            "Showoff," Ranma hissed at Fa Shen. 

            Happosai scowled. He did not care to see Nodoka butcher her family, but, this was an insult to his pride. In a low tone, he uttered a warning, "Fa Shen…" No need to be too obvious, he chuckled. That should be enough to make the boy toe the line.

            Nodoka frowned. "Fa Shen…? Wha- Who is that?"

            Ranma instantly jumped up, "Uh! Me! I am Fa Shen!"

            Nodoka's frown evolved into a scowl. "Ranneko… this is no time for games," she warned, pushing the point. 

            "It's not a game." Ranma turned to Happosai, "You're not going to use the contract to manipulate us anymore. You wanna play that way? Fine. Let's play!"

            "Oooohhh! Really!?" Happosai took on an evil grin. "So, maybe you want to explain to your mother what 'Ranma' has to do to heal Ranko? Hmmm?" he taunted. The room temperature plummeted as two people summoned the soul of ice. "Well, Ranma? Do you want to tell her? Or shall I?"

            Nodoka stepped forward, "Her name is Ranneko. I know about the curse, so don't think you can confuse me!"

            "Ah! So! But, I thought she was Fa Shen!" he played innocent and turned to the boy. "I guess that makes you Fa Shen, then doesn't it?" Fa Shen snarled and placed her hands together, gathering a ball of chi. 

            "Whoops, looks like I pissed her off! We can pick up this lovely chat again some other time, then!" he darted around the room, making for the open door, almost to freedom, when Ranko lurched into his path and collared him.

            "You sick old man! You're worse than Pops! Stirrin' up trouble and then runnin' away! Not this time!"

            Still, Nodoka knew how he worked. He caused so much trouble, because he always knew how to twist the truth. His threats always had something substantial behind them. "Ranma?" she was afraid to ask, but better to hear it from him. "What do you have to do to heal Ranko?"

            Happosai, twisted out of Ranko's grasp, and with a touch, dropped her to the floor. Hopping onto her belly and taking up a fighting pose, he shouted gleefully, "Come on, 'Ranma'," he winked at the real Ranma, "tell Mother! She would want to know who her 'little BOY' is sleeping with, yes!?"

            "That does it!" a general shout, as this taunting finally became insulting. As one, the fighters in the room surged forward. As one, they suddenly realized who would take the punishment if they missed Happosai. Ranko was laying helpless beneath his feet. 

            "Heh. Last chance to apologize, Ranma!"

            "Hey, Happosai!" Ranma shouted.

            "Yes, my sweet?"

            "Don't forget our promise. You go down, you die!"

            "Ah, life's no fun if you play it safe!" he proceeded to laugh like he was having the time of his life. "Go on, Nodoka! Ask your 'son' what 'he' needs to do. What 'he' WANTS to do!"

            Nodoka shook with anger at being played. She looked at her son, pleading silently, wondering what lay behind the cold mask that hid his emotions. Fa Shen risked a glance at Ranma. Ranma, standing behind Nodoka, sighed and gave a slight nod. Fa Shen stiffened and opened his mouth to speak. 

            "Ranma has to sleep with Fa Shen," Mousse suddenly interrupted. "It's the only way to generate ki for Ranko. It's the only way to heal the damage, now that the curse is broken."

            Happosai sagged. "Now, why did you have to put it like that?" he complained, jumping off of Ranko and getting in the blind martial-artist's face. "You took all the fun out of it! No wonder Cologne doesn't like you! You're a spoil sport!" he poked the boy in the chest three times. The third time, he stuffed one of his trademark bombs inside Mousse's robes and bounded away. The explosion caused the boy's robes to puff out like a tent and billow as smoke and wind poured violently out through the openings. Mousse was rocked and blackened by the blast, but remained on his feet. 

            Nodoka, having recovered her voice by this point, blinked and begged, "I'm sorry. Who is Fa Shen, again?"

            As Ranma raised her hand, everyone else pointed feverishly at her. "Me. I am," she said. Happosai bounded around to behind Fa Shen, and cupping his mouth conspiratorially mouthed "him" and pointed at the boy accusatively. Ranma glared and went on, "Ranneko is just something we came up with on the spot last night, since they didn't know who I was." She punctuated this with a meaningful look at the others. "Anyway… I am the reason that, um… Ranko and Ranma were cursed. Aheh, I guess you could say, I am the curse," which, if she had been Fa Shen, was quite true. At the very least, she was laying the ground work to tell the complete truth, once she and Fa Shen were cursed back to normal. There was a relieved sigh from the crowd, as they realized how Ranma had put the cat back in the bag. Truly, she was the last person anyone would expect to be able to do that!

            From the ground came the plaintive voice of Ranko, "Uh, guys? Since the old goat isn't standing on top of me at the moment, could you PLEASE go kill him now?" With that, she gave into the shock of what she had just learned. She could not believe Ranma and Fa Shen were willing to do THAT just to help her heal. Imagining how that knowledge could have been used against Ranma, she shuddered and covered her face. She did not bother to think much after that, because the sounds of battle suddenly filled the room. 


	34. A Pocket Full of Mischief

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Thirty-Four: A Pocket Full of Mischief

In the brief lull between Ranma declaring herself to be Fa Shen and Ranko's plaintive call for Happosai's demise, the demented old master of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts narrowed his wizened old eyes on Nodoka. Having been the source of the fabled Togenkyo water used by Genma to sire his son and heir, and having possessed numerous tomes and treasures stolen from the Tribe of Heroines, it suddenly became obvious what the restoration of her natural hair color meant. Curious, and completely indifferent to the chaos he had already stirred up, he bounced over and proceeded to pat the woman down. So it was that Happosai was cheerfully molesting Ranko's mother when the drained girl dropped the gauntlet. The battle commenced with the woman's shriek of indignity and attempts by every fighter in the room to separate the old toad from her person. While Nodoka twisted around, the naked steel in her hands flashed and whirled, sending everyone diving for cover as quickly as they dove in to assist. Ryouga tripped over Ranko in his own haste to escape. Laid out full length on top of her, he stared into her eyes and blushed furiously. 

            "Ryouga! Off!!!" Ranko blazed weakly.

            "S-sorry! Sorry!" the lost boy bounced up, then proceeded to pick the girl up and search for a safer place to lay her down. Such a place did not exist in a world with Happosai, and only his perverse interest in Nodoka, at the moment, offered Ranko any security. 

            Ranma and Fa Shen itched to pry the old man off of the Saotome matriarch, but her own wild weapon was standing them off. The perverted dwarf inspired her wild swings by bouncing away to offer her a target, then speeding in to cling and crawl along her limbs and torso while she lashed out. The old master, briefly detouring from the delights of Nodoka's luscious form, concluded a quick search of her pockets and produced a bottle of water labeled in Chinese. Scampering to a perch on top of her head, he read the label and pulled the cork with a crow of delight. Everyone tensed in dread. 

            "What do you know! After all this time!" 

            "Oh no!" Nodoka cried, realizing what Happosai had stolen from her. 

            "What is that?" Ranma and Fa Shen flinched back. 

            "Oh, Master! Please, be careful with that! You don't know…"

            "Be quiet, Soun! I know perfectly well what this is!"

            [Run for your life, Boy!] Genma's sign waved, unnoticed. 

            "Happosai! You mustn't!" Nodoka dropped her sword and reached up with both hands in vain to grab the bottle. Happosai launched himself into the air to evade her grasp. Ranma and Fa Shen took one look at him sailing in their direction with a bottle of water—they had no idea what it was, or what it could do, but they had both learned to fear any untested water—and bolted in opposite directions in terror. Nodoka saw their fear and immediately assumed they knew what it was. Why else fear mere water? Why fear that water unless…? "Ranma…?" she caught her breath.

            "He doesn't know," Akane hissed. 

            "Anything that makes Happosai happy is bad news," Nabiki added. 

            Mousse watched as Happosai turned to pursue Fa Shen, cackling in glee at the prospect of restoring the resurrected amazon's femininity, and proceeded to unleash his arsenal. Darts, daggers, yo-yo's and various deadly implements on the end of long ropes and chains shot out of his voluminous sleeves to either snare the old master or disarm him before he could bring the water to bear.

            "Oh my!" Kasumi covered her mouth. There was going to be quite a mess to clean up when this was all over. 

            Happosai ducked and dodged around the incoming missiles and deftly evaded the entanglements. His attention focused on Fa Shen, he shouted, "Hold still, darn it! I just want to test something!" As quickly as he had forgotten his vow to keep Ranma and Fa Shen's sexual adventure a secret, he had allowed it to slip his mind WHY the pair had been compelled to consider it. 

            "Test what!? What are you tryin' to do to me NOW old man!?"

            Seeing that Happosai was ignoring her, Ranma had turned and was now racing after the old pervert, weaving through the tangled web Mousse had created in the Tendo living quarters. His efforts to continue his assault were not making things any easier for her. "Hey! Happosai! Since when were you into chasing boys!?" she taunted. 

            "Ranma! He thinks that water will turn him INTO a girl!" Nabiki warned. That earned her a glare from Nodoka. Nabiki stared back at her coolly and shrugged. It was all well and good to not cast doubt on Ranma's manhood, but it was stupid to keep him ignorant of the danger. The only problem was, the boy was not really Ranma.

            Fa Shen stumbled to a halt and gaped at Nabiki. "You're kidding! How is that…" This distraction was all Happosai had needed. The question was interrupted by a huge splash as Happosai flung the contents of the bottle over the boy. "…possible?" Fa Shen concluded her question in amazement, looking down at herself in surprise. 

            "Oh no!" Ranma had only an instant to process Nabiki's warning before witnessing as Ranko gained another twin. Picturing Fa Shen's full reaction to the return of womanhood, Ranma knew she had distract her. Straining for greater speed, she rocketed into Fa Shen before Happosai could complete his assault with a body caressing glomp, and her momentum carried the pair of them out toward the koi pond. 

            "Pretty girl!" Happosai dropped through the restored girl's after-image and began cursing in frustration. He was so distracted, he did not notice the insane fury that possessed Nodoka. The woman had slipped one foot under the sword she had dropped, kicked it into the air and lunged forward in one motion. Everyone watched, stunned, their eyes still turned to where the boy had turned into a girl, and caught full view of Nodoka snatching the sword out of mid-air and driving it down, point first at Happosai. He turned at the last instant and saw the blade descending. He gulped loudly. The explosive splash of Ranma and Fa Shen hitting the pond reached the room as everyone saw the Saotome honor blade pass through Happosai's shocked form and sink itself half way into the floor of the Tendo home with a loud, hard thunk. 

            "Die!!!" Nodoka cried, tears spilling from her eyes. 

            Before anyone could react, the old master's body seemed to simply fade out of existence like a bad memory. A round of gasps was followed by a gentle pat as the diminutive martial arts master dropped down from the ceiling to perch on the pommel of the sword. Nodoka's vicious strike had only caught the man's after image!

            "Damn woman! You could have killed me with this thing!" he complained, clutching his chest in alarm. A drop of blood welled on the tip of his nose, from where the point of the blade caught him as he desperately jumped up to escape the fatal strike. His eyes widened, and he made to leap away again as a huge mallet descended toward his skull. His second spurt of motion was barely enough to cause him to squirt out from between the mallet and the sword as Akane's strike hammered the sword down to its hilt in the floor. 

            "Die you demented freak!!!" Akane screamed, continuing to slam her mallet down, pursuing the old man as he crawled between blows to get away. Her strength soaring from the power of her rage, each meaty thwack was accompanied by the cracking and crunching of old bones and the grunts of air expelled from Happosai's lungs. While the bones of his condensed form were too dense to break, even from this abuse, his old joints snapped and popped as the violent compressions dislocated them. The old man had instants for his inhuman healing factor to wrench his limbs back into proper order before she clobbered him with a following blow. 

            While it looked like she might never stop, Happosai eventually recovered enough to brace himself and meet the descending weapon. With one finger, he stopped its downward arc. His other hand pulled the mirror compact out of his gi and snapped it open. Akane stared in shock, unable to believe the artifact had not been destroyed by her punishment, and fell victim to its power. With a whoosh she was sucked into the mirror. 

            "What have you done with my little girl!?" Soun lunged forward, his head growing to monstrous proportions as his writhing tongue shot out and wrapped itself around Happosai's neck. 

            "Ack! That's enough! I've had it!" Happosai choked. He lobbed a Happodaikarin at Soun, the blast dispelling the demon-head attack, and followed it up by flashing the open mirror in his face. Whoosh. Another Tendo was out of the fight. Happosai twisted in a spiral, dodging another barrage of implements from Mousse, then leapt onto the table in the center of the room. Nodoka was tugging on the handle of her sword, trying to pull it free of the floor, Nabiki was slinking back into the hall, with Kasumi shielded partially behind her, and Genma was staring at him with beady panda eyes. Happosai whipped around and caught Ryouga trying to sneak Ranko away from the fight. Past him, Ranma and Fa Shen were preparing to rejoin the fray. Happosai glared at them, knowing they were the greatest threat. 

            The girls glared back. It had looked like Akane was keeping everyone's attention for a bit, but now they needed to return to the fight. Ranma had forced Fa Shen to trade clothes and braid Ranma's hair while everyone was distracted by the aftermath of Nodoka's attack. Ranma had known that, however it happened, once Fa Shen turned into a girl, Ranma had to trade places with her. She would not allow Fa Shen to die in her place if her mother did not react well to the transformation. Having become used to quick changes, the clothing and identity swap was completed with enough time for them to witness the trapping of Akane and Soun, as Fa Shen let her hair down to complete the deception. 

            "You keep an eye on Ranko, Ryouga," Ranma commanded, passing her ersatz lover and nemesis. "We'll take care of the old goat."

            "Are you sure you two can handle him on you own?" Ryouga frowned, cradling Ranko in his arms, her head on his shoulder. He wanted to rip the old man limb from limb, but his first instinct, to keep him from using the helpless Ranko against them, still gripped him. 

            "Between us, he doesn't stand a chance," Fa Shen promised. It was a bitter declaration, since the old man had just restored her to normal. However, his actions had clearly doomed Ranma. Her anger over the initial betrayal of trust blossomed into a killing rage, awakening the maiden of war she had become during the conflict that ended her life. 

            While Happosai studied them, Genma-panda slipped up beside his wife and grasped the hilt of her sword in one massive paw. With a growl of exertion, and a scream of tortured wood, he drew the blade free and handed it to Nodoka. She stared back into the frighteningly intelligent eyes of the cursed beast, before hardening her gaze and turning once more to face the old master. Genma grunted and took an offensive stance protectively beside her. A look passed from him to Ranma, the former son nodding to assert her identity. 

            "You make a fine young woman, Ranma," Happosai smirked, sensing the circle closing around him. The enclosed space neatly hampered his style, forcing him to stand his ground when his normal tactics involved an exhausting chase through the streets. He shifted his stance to look at Nodoka and bowed. "I hope you are proud of the daughter you SHOULD have borne, Nodoka-chan!"

            Genma snarled, and Nodoka leveled her blade. "You have meddled for the last time, Happosai! If you think you have turned me against my child, you are sadly mistaken! I shall love and cherish MY DAUGHTER every bit as much as the SON you have slain with this vicious act!" she spat. How it was possible for her son to become a perfect copy of Ranko and Ranneko… or Fa Shen—or whoever she really was… she could wonder at later. For now, it would be enough to stop him from ever harming another family as he had harmed hers. She blinked her tears away and lunged in to strike. 

            Happosai laughed and leapt away from the blade arcing in to cleave him. As he did, he kicked a hot kettle of tea into Genma's face, restoring his apprentice's true form. Because the old man had launched himself in the same direction, Nodoka turned and witnessed the second startling transformation of this battle. Too angry to think straight, Genma made no effort to dodge. Out of habit, he instantly produced and donned his familiar gi and headcloth, adjusted his glasses, and snapped out a series of kicks and punches to meet Happosai's assault. 

            "Genma!" Nodoka gasped, nearly dropping her sword in shock.

            "Forgive me, my darling!" Genma wept, driving himself on against the man who trained him. Fury and desperation granting him the speed to evade the old man's shiatsu strikes and return a few solid blows. Happosai, annoyed by the fact that Genma had momentarily overcome his fear and fought with his true ability, rebounded from the occasional hit, leading the bigger man around the room. From the hard, ruthless patterns emerging, Genma was on the verge of unsealing the Yamasen-ken. Should he unleash that, and the compliment to his infamous brainchild, the Umisen-ken, Happosai would be forced to take the man seriously. 

            "Genma! You're beginning to make me angry!" Happosai threatened. "Unless you want to feel my wrath, you better cease and apologize!" His student was well aware of the nature of Happosai's revenge, the malicious campaign of humiliation and degradation he would unleash would wreak physical, mental, emotional and financial ruin on the man. 

            "Dead men can't take revenge!" Ranma shouted, launching herself into close combat. She was grateful that her father had kept the troll occupied long enough for her to work out a strategy with Fa Shen. The resurrected amazon had proven to be the most effective opponent Happosai had faced in recent months. All Ranma and Genma had to do was give her an opening and she could cripple the old man in his tracks. Ranma effortlessly fell into step with her father. The two knew each other so well they could fight as one, Ranma providing the dazzling speed and agility to box Happosai in, while Genma overwhelmed the old man with superior size and strength. 

            Happosai was laughing, or rather chuckling, madly. He was being pressed hard enough that he could not spare the air for outright laughter, but he was enjoying himself immensely. Ranma was dancing circles around him, hemming him in, tying him down so Genma could deliver punishing strikes. At the same time, she was batting away his Happodaikarin as quickly as he produced them. Mousse was circling the trio, ferrying the bombs Ranma lobbed at him out into the yard and acting as back up to keep the old man from getting away. Occasionally, Ranma would leave an opening for escape, but if Happosai tried to take it, a pole arm or mace would whip out from Mousse to intercept the master. Nodoka had quickly realized she could not bring her sword to bear without endangering her husband or child, and had rushed out to relieve Ryouga. The lost boy placed Ranko in her care and raced in to assist those pressing Happosai. The founder of Anything Goes was almost at his limit just rolling with the punches. 

            It seemed inevitable that the four of them would grind the old man into paste, but after a while it became obvious, as he risked death again and again to snuggle up to Ranma, that the little charge ups he was getting from her were boosting his healing and endurance more than enough to keep from being worn down. Cursing, she had to drift to the edge of the conflict and let Mousse and Ryouga press him close. Neither was as fast as Ranma, but they still reacted quickly enough, when he produced an object, to knock it out of his hands. This discouraged him from whipping out the compact and trapping another of them, or using his pipe to grapple with. The amount of damage the three males delivered the old man would have finished even Pantyhose Taro, but Happosai took his lumps and kept dancing. Finally, Fa Shen entered the fray.

            In comparison to the pace of the battle, it had seemed to take forever for her to charge the area with negative ki. Except for Happosai himself, though, no one present had witnessed her Vengeance of Heaven, Raking Claws technique. Thus, as she darted in, clawed hand reaching to intercept Happosai, Mousse attempted to help by snaring the master in binding chains. Happosai caught the amazons' movements from the corners of his eyes, and instead of dodging the chain, leapt up to intercept it. While the center wrapped around him, he whipped the loose end around Ryouga. The other end was firmly anchored in Mousse's hand when Fa Shen screamed her attack and grabbed hold of the man. Grasping the chain in both hands, Happosai howled under the onslaught of massive electrical discharge but channeled much of the searing lightening through to Mousse and Ryouga. 

            For several seconds the three cried out in pain, dancing the electric boogaloo, as Genma and Ranma twisted away to shield their eyes. Fa Shen snarled, realizing too late how her attack had been turned against her allies, and broke contact. The lightening shifted from Happosai to her, as she grunted to contain the power she had unleashed. While she dropped to one knee, Happosai lunged, heaving on the chain and throwing Ryouga and Mousse out the open shoji and into the pond. All three of them were blackened and smoking, but still able to move. Unfortunately, the duck and piglet that emerged from the pond were no longer much of a threat. Genma turned around, realizing that the master had bought too much room to breathe, and lunged in to attack. 

            "Too slow, Genma!" Happosai grinned, an evil glint in his eye as he snapped open the compact in his face. 

            "Ranma! It's all up to yooooooou…!" Genma's cry was swallowed, along with him, by the mirror. Ranma made the best of her father's sacrifice to dart in and deliver a snap kick to Happosai's wrist. The compact went flying out of the old man's grasp, through the entrance to the hall and skittering off towards the kitchen. In a flash, Happosai took off after it. Ranma spared one glance at Fa Shen, who was dragging herself to her feet, her hair standing on end and crackles of electricity sparking off of her form. She nodded to indicate she was alright and Ranma raced down the hall. P-Chan rocketed through the room after her like a black homing missile. Following Ranma, the porcine projectile made its way into the kitchen. Now as small, fast and agile as the old master, he streaked around the room in Happosai's wake. Ranma skidded, losing her footing on a patch of soup the two hurtling black blurs knocked off the counter, sliding on her flank to crash into a cabinet. 

            "Waaah!" Shaking her head, then twisting it around to follow the ricocheting path of Ryouga and Happosai, she barely noticed what her fingers brushed against as she braced her arm to stand. "Oh! What luck!" she cheered, realizing she had come to rest right next to the mirror. Happosai spotted her plucking the compact up off the floor and homed in on her. She jerked and whipped around, holding the open mirror to shield her from the incoming attack she sensed. Happosai caught the flash of reflected light from the mirror and squinched his eyes shut, hurdling the top of the mirror as he streaked in, and planted both feet in Ranma's face. P-Chan, in hot pursuit, gave a wide eyed squeal of alarm before vanishing into the trap. Ranma's head snapped back at the blow, cracking hard against the cabinet frame, and she lost her grip on the compact. Happosai rebounded from her face, snatched up the trap and raced back out through the Tea Room. 

            Fa Shen was ready for him. "Got you!" she shouted. Forming a massive ball of chi in her hands, she snapped her hands apart, sending a ring of destruction right at Happosai, "Dragon's Noose!" As intended, Happosai dove for the open middle as she clapped her hands back together, "Vengeance of Heaven, Snapping Jaws!" A dark bolt of chi shot out ahead of a wall of compressed air. It hit Happosai square in the chest. All the energy in the glowing chi "smoke-ring" shot in toward that black bolt. There was a thunderous explosion as Happosai became the hub of a wheel of sheet lightening. The entire dojo shook from the confined detonation. Ranma raced in from the kitchen, barely noticing the shocked expressions on Nabiki and Kasumi's faces as they peered down from the end of the hall, and screeched to a halt over the blackened form of Happosai.

            The old man lay on his face, still and unmoving. 

            "Did you kill him?" Ranma asked, as Fa Shen dragged herself over to Ranma's side to examine their foe. Ranma nudged the old man with a toe, half expecting him to leap up and bite her. 

            "It's possible," Fa Shen panted. She felt a faint satisfaction at seeing her special technique actually work properly this time. Kneeling in front of Ranma, she carefully rolled the old man over onto his back. As the two girls leaned in, his eyes popped open and he giggled. As their eyes widened in shock, he flipped open the mirror in his hand. 

            "Suckers!" he crowed, watching the pair vanish helplessly into the mirror. As their cries of dismay evaporated, he snapped the trap shut and collapsed back, panting. "Damn. I almost didn't make it through that one!" he complained as he put the compact safely away. While his eyes closed, he heard the footsteps of Nabiki and Kasumi approach. He sighed as the two girls knelt next to him, and propped him up. "Why, thank you girls! I won't forget your kindness!" He blinked and tried to focus as Kasumi took his chin in one soft hand and smiled down at him. 

            "You look like you could use something to liven you up," she smiled, as Nabiki held the rim of a bowl to his lips. 

            "Down the hatch!" Nabiki grinned evilly, as Kasumi hit a pressure point on the old man's neck that caused his mouth to open as wide as it possibly could. Nabiki then dumped a full bowl of Akane's special breakfast miso soup down his throat. Kasumi kindly tapped another point that caused the old man to swallow. "Compliments of Akane!" Nabiki stared him in the eye hatefully. 

            "Oh! Nabiki!" the other girl suddenly stiffened. "Are you sure this was really proper!?" Kasumi looked down and watched as the old man's bruised and bloodied face proceeded to display every hue found in the kingdom of fungi, molds and mildew.

            "Are you complaining?" Nabiki asked as the small, evil, long unwanted house-guest choked on his medicine.

            "Well…" Kasumi held herself tight as the old man flopped like a fish out of water on fast forward. "What if we kill him?" she asked in a small voice.

            "Then you will have done the world a favor," Nodoka announced, lured in by the sudden silence in this symphony of destruction. Ranko, carried piggyback, looked over her shoulder at Happosai, as his body arched and finally fell still. She made no sound as her mother positioned her sword over Happosai's chest and prepared to skewer the man where he lay. The four women held their breath for several minutes as Nodoka contemplated murder. They all wanted him to pay for the damage he had done in their lives. They all suspected that, even with all the abuse he had taken in this fight, he would recover and be back to plaguing them again in no time. 

            Happosai's eyes creaked open and he coughed to muster his voice. Meeting Nodoka's unforgiving glare, he smiled faintly. In a weak, but steady voice he proceeded. "Murder is not your style, Nodoka. But, if you want an excuse not to," he coughed again, "I'd like to point out that it is rather difficult to recover what a dead man has tucked away in folds of his shadow."

            "What is that supposed to mean?" Nodoka ground her teeth.

            "You might have noticed the insane amount of weaponry Mousse pulled out of his sleeves. Tell me, Nodoka, where does he keep it all?" Happosai gave a wizened old grin. 

            The four women stiffened at the question. Then, a certain bespectacled duck quacked for their attention. Nodoka turned to stare at the creature, gasping when it pulled a sword out from between it's feathers. The weapon was larger than the duck itself. "T-th-the d-duck j-just pulled a SWORD o-out of THIN AIR!" she stammered in disbelief. 

            "Mom," Ranko sighed, "I think you have to let him live. Everyone is trapped in the mirror and he's stuck it where no one can get to it."

            Nodoka sighed and shifted her sword to the side. Hanging her head, she uttered in a low voice, "One of these days, Happosai, you will pay for your misdeeds." She was about to walk off in defeat when she straightened in shock. Ranko was so surprised that she slipped off the tall woman's back and fell on her rear. She looked up in shock as Nodoka spun and stared at her. "You called me MOM!" the woman cried, her voice filled with hope and longing.

            "Nodoka. It's time you got a few things straight," Happosai sat up, clutching his stomach in agony. He winced and then let out a prolonged burp. For all the world, it looked as if a cloud of toxic gas streamed out of his mouth and then scampered away from the old man in search of a place to hide. He shuddered and continued. "Seeing as I have most of your family hostage for the moment, maybe it's time we started negotiations."

While Nodoka stood watch over the incapacitated Happosai, Kasumi and Nabiki called in reinforcements. Nabiki was able to get herself, Akane and Ukyo excused from school on account of a "family emergency". It was the first time that Ukyo's status as a fiancée had proved particularly useful. To have another fighter on hand in case Happosai recovered, Nabiki was willing to risk this public acknowledgement. Further calls rounded up Dr. Tofu, Cologne and Shampoo. The good doctor arrived first, and proceeded to examine the old man while Kasumi busied herself out of sight cleaning the kitchen. By the time the amazons and Ukyo arrived, Tofu had diagnosed Happosai and concluded that he was sufficiently injured to require several days of bed rest. If not for the residual female ki in Fa Shen's final attack, the old man would have died. However, it was Akane's cooking that had truly laid him up. Even Happosai's constitution was severely taxed by a full serving of toxic waste. Cologne provided a purgative and prescribed some herbal remedies that had the pleasant side effect of making the old man as weak and uncoordinated as a baby. 

            Unfortunately, while they assured he could not fight for the immediate future, the old man did indeed hold half the Tendo and most of the Saotome families hostage. 

            "If you keep poisoning me, I am not going to bring any of them back!" Happosai threatened grumpily, after recovering from the purgative. In his worn and weakened state, projectile vomiting induced by Cologne's remedy was violently painful. 

            "You are a stubborn old man, Happi," Cologne sneered, "but a few days in your condition, subjected to my ministrations, and you would have no choice but to hand over the compact. Not even you are immune to compulsion." She wrung out a towel soaked in hot water and laid it over his forehead. "Now, after you have had a few minutes to recover, we will get to these negotiations you demanded."

            Leaving the old man in his room with Dr. Tofu, Cologne returned to the Tea Room where a shell shocked Nodoka had retired once the good doctor had taken Happosai in hand. She had remained passive through most of Nabiki's earlier recap of the battle for Cologne, Shampoo and Ukyo—apart from snagging a heated kettle and dousing the duck to restore Mousse's proper form, when Nabiki mentioned Genma's transformation. There had been a brief, reluctant lecture from Cologne to explain the curses of Jusenkyo, but Nodoka failed to voice the suspicion everyone dreaded. Perhaps, in her mind, the transformation of her son was attributed to the altogether different powers of Togenkyo. When Nodoka said nothing, Nabiki continued describing the battle. When Cologne excused herself to assist Tofu, the two fiancées were absolutely floored by the fact that Nodoka had witnessed Fa Shen's restoration. Nabiki had used meaningful looks and careful phrasing to confirm the unspoken assumption that Fa Shen had been forced to pose as Nodoka's son. It did not take genius to realize that in Nodoka's mind she no longer had a son.

            Fortunately, Ranma was trapped with several people who could all assure her that Nodoka had no intentions of having Ranma commit seppuku because of this revelation. Unfortunately, she would also learn that Nodoka intended to make a real woman out of her and get her married to fulfill Nodoka's secret family obligation. Nabiki would not lay odds on the chance of that going over well. Ranma may have been subtly infected by the former Ranko's quest to get in touch with her femininity, but it went without saying that she would fight to be a man again. No one wanted to guess how Nodoka would take that. 

            "Happosai will be strong enough to talk in a moment," Cologne informed everyone as she perched on the table among them. Taking a deep breath, she decided to return to the cause of the battle, since Nabiki had glossed over it so far. "Can anyone explain how this conflict was started?"

            Nabiki sighed and looked at Mousse. "I think part of the blame lies with feather brain here," she scowled. Fixing him with a stern eye, she prompted, "I think you know what that was really about. Happosai was taunting Ranma, and aroused Nodoka's suspicion, but I am still not sure what he was getting at. You said Ranma had to sleep with Fa Shen to heal Ranko. Do you care to explain that?" The implications were obvious, and certainly enough to cause chaos in the families, but the reasons simply eluded the mercenary girl. 

            "The only reason I said what I did was because I could see that Ranma was about to cave in and tell," Mousse noted carefully, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Composing himself, he went on, "We all know about Ranma's gift with words. On such a delicate subject, it seemed difficult enough for people to hear, but if Ranma told it, things might have gone much worse. The simple explanation is, sex generates loose ki. That energy normally contributes to the conception of new life. Without conception, the energy eventually returns to its source, but for a short period of time it lingers and can be channeled to other uses. Since Ranko…" he paused and looked at Nodoka. Burying his face in his hands for a moment, he groaned. There was no way around it.

            "Ranko was bound to Ranma and Fa Shen by the curse. Because of this, she could absorb ki from Ranma or Fa Shen to replace what she lost through the cure," he modified. Hoping Nodoka did not question why this was true, he pressed on. "In order to heal Ranko, it seemed obvious that Ranma and Fa Shen would have to have sex, and the simplest arrangement would have been for them to do it with each other."

            Nodoka listened to this. It certainly was not a light thing for her son to have contemplated. He was engaged to Akane, and several other girls it seemed, though she had never been entirely clear on that count, so it did pose a threat to the Tendo family honor. However, "I find this a little confusing. First, I thought the curse made such a thing fatal for them to risk doing. Second, Ranneko… er, Fa Shen…" she shook her head. "I do wish someone would explain why Ranko's 'twin' isn't her twin, or how she could be, as she put it, the 'curse'. Whoever she is, she stressed that what Ranma had to do to heal Ranko would be a stain on his manhood. I know it is a bit scandalous, for an engaged man to take a lover—a lover who might be a Tendo herself, if she is truly Ranko's sister—but one cannot deny it would be manly."

            "To put it simply, Nodoka," coughed Happosai, as he limped into the room, "no one has told you the full truth yet. Which brings me to the first point of our negotiations." He made his way to the table and then perched next to Cologne and cleared his throat. Dr. Tofu followed and took a seat in silence next to Ukyo. When everyone's attention was on him, Happosai announced, "It is time you learned the truth, Nodoka. However, the reason we had this little fracas this morning is because it's never quite safe to confront you with the naked truth. So, before I dare, I must have your word of honor that you will listen to and comprehend all I have to say, and that you will not act until you do. Secondly, on the matter of Ranma's manhood, I expect you to heed the opinions of those who know him best, especially Ranma himself, before passing judgment."

            "There is no need for judgment. You've made it quite clear that SHE was not intended to be a man," Nodoka grated. Shampoo and Ukyo bit their lips and clenched their fists in their laps. They could see that the hurt and hateful look Nodoka gave Happosai was in some part directed at herself. It was torturing her that the fates had taken her two greatest wishes and twisted them in such a cruel fashion. All the sacrifices she had made for her son were wasted, her dream of a daughter destroyed by an obligation that stopped nature from taking its course. 

            "Again, you don't know the facts. Just give me your word, Nodoka-chan. Heed my words and answer my questions, and you will learn," Happosai huffed.

            "Fine. You have my word."

            "Excellent! Now, before I begin, please tell me, why was it necessary for you to have a son? More importantly, why was it so important for him to be a pinnacle of manhood?" he prompted. The others turned to the matron in interest. When Nodoka repeated her earlier claim of a promise to her father, and her family obligation, he waved it off. "I know about the promise. Genma went on about it for hours when he begged for my assistance in conceiving his heir. What I am asking is, did you ever bother to learn why your father placed this obligation on you? Do you know what purpose Ranma was supposed to serve?"

            Nodoka blinked. Folding her hands in her lap and staring at them, she confessed, "I tried many times to pry that information out of my father. I first learned of the obligation when my marriage to Genma was arranged. Initially, he said he would confide in us when I gave birth to a son, but before that happened a thief broke into his house and got into his personal papers. Father claimed the thief was obviously searching for information on the family legacy that Ranma was supposed to fulfill. Because of this intrusion, Father decided it could be dangerous to reveal anything more until Ranma was of age to assume his obligation. Because of my father's sudden death, I feared the knowledge was lost, but in his will he stated that all the pertinent information was entrusted to an old friend of the family." She sighed and wiped an unshed tear from her eyelashes. "Ranma is old enough now that, had he been the boy he appeared to be, we could have gone to this man to learn what Ranma was to do. I… I don't know what to do now."

            "I see. I take it then that this man would be the one to pass final judgment on Ranma's manhood then?" Happosai pressed. 

            "I know only that Ranma was to be tested, initially by my father, but in this case no doubt by his friend," Nodoka shrugged. 

            Happosai nodded. "Well, as I see it, it is not unlikely that if Ranma became male again, he might pass whatever test awaits. I would think that's enough reason not to act hastily," Happosai pointed out. "So, that settled, it is time to tell you the truth about Ranma, Fa Shen and the curse."

            Everyone in the room tensed. This was not what any of them expected when Happosai spoke of "negotiations". Cologne smirked, realizing that Happosai took the matter at hand seriously enough to play wise old elder. Even though it suddenly sounded as if he had appointed himself Ranma's advocate, she was suspicious of his intentions. Even she would hesitate before daring to present Ranma's mother with the truth. In spite of her reputed haste in passing judgment, she honestly felt she needed to hear this tale from her son, not a third party. "Is it fair to have this discussion when they cannot be present?" Cologne demanded. 

            "Certainly, because most of what I have to say concerns Nodoka's daughter," Happosai crossed his arms and turned to look at the remaining pig-tailed girl. "Ranko," he nodded to her. The girl sitting beside Nodoka stiffened in surprise. The other teens in the room gaped at Happosai, bug eyed. 

            "What are you talking about?" Ranko demanded uncomfortably. 

            "My… daughter?" Nodoka looked at her. 

            "Yes. Your daughter," Happosai scowled. "The person who should have been born if not for my meddling. A person who sits here today as the result of Ranma's curse."

            "I don't understand…" Nodoka frowned, pulling the girl close to her side. Unable to fathom where Happosai was going, most of the witnesses suddenly felt as removed as poor Kasumi, who listened from the hall to avoid Tofu. 

            "How do you come up with that?" Ranko challenged. She knew he was about to explain about Jusenkyo, but she could not see how he was getting around to it. 

            "Taking the things we've learned recently, it's not that hard to see," Happosai insisted. Pulling out a video cassette and handing it to Nabiki, he instructed, "You should have known if you taped something like this, it would eventually find its way into the wrong hands. Still, it's useful now. Why don't you play this for Nodoka." 

            Nabiki checked the label and noticed her own hand writing. She knew at once what the tape was. She had made it thinking it could be used to convince Kuno that Ranma and the Pig-Tailed-Girl were the same person. Deciding he would probably dismiss the tape, she had kept it for personal amusement. When it disappeared, she had assumed Ranma had found it and destroyed it. While she turned on the television and prepared to play it, Happosai finally mentioned Jusenkyo.

            "Last spring, Genma was concluding Ranma's training in China and decided to take his son to a legendary training ground known as Jusenkyo," he began. After Cologne's lecture, Nodoka was properly disturbed and suspicious of what would follow. He described the events so familiar to the rest of the crowd, focusing on the images beginning to play on the screen. It showed the Tendo furo, where a naked Ranma had just entered and squatted down on a stool in preparation to bathe. "…Genma jumped out of the spring Ranma knocked him into and continued to fight, unaware that anything special had occurred. However, Ranma was quite startled by the sight of his father turned into a panda and was knocked into another spring. The Nyanniichaun," he named it as the boy on the screen picked up a bucket of cold water and poured it over his head. Quicker than the camera could pick up, his form shrank and altered. 

            "R-Ranko!" Nodoka gasped, watching the boy turned girl shiver at the cold and begin to wash herself. Ranko just blushed and hunched in on herself. She found herself praying that this was not a record of one of the few times during her stay at the dojo where she had "tension" to burn off during her bath. 

            "This was your son's curse. Whenever he was splashed with cold water, he would become a she," Happosai nodded, smirking at the image. "Because of the contract Genma made, he forced Ranma to hide his true identity until they could find a cure, and that is where Ranko came into the picture."

            "I don't understand. I… Ranko and Ranma… even that other girl, they were all here in the same place. How can that…" she pointed at the screen, where the girl was rinsing off and proceeding to climb into the heated tub, "…be both Ranma and Ranko?"

            Ranko just sighed as she saw the girl on screen become a boy again. She had not been caught indulging in immodest behavior on tape. Seeing Happosai looking at her expectantly, and knowing that finally the truth was at hand, she spoke. "That's actually me," she stated meekly. "Ranma and Fa Shen were split off from me by the cure. Until last week, we were all one person." She bit her lip and turned impulsively to Cologne, "What I don't understand is, the mirror never copied the curse; why did your antidote change Fa Shen back into a girl when she ended up stuck in the male copy of me?"

            Nodoka froze.

            "As I explained to you, Ranko, your male form was just a mask. It was enough for the curse to latch onto, but when the mirror copied you it had to catch the underlying truth to make that copy real. In a funny way, it made the reflections more equal, since one was a girl turned into a boy and the other was a boy turned into a girl. I suppose if you had discovered and shown your true form to the mirror, you could have produced another reflection," Cologne hypothesized.

            "What are you talking about?" Nodoka finally pleaded. 

            "Ranko's cure was mostly an accident," Cologne turned to the mother. She proceeded to explain the legend of the Mirror of Broken Souls and what had happened when "Ranma" had stumbled across it. From there it was easy enough to simply describe everything that had happened up to the previous evening. "Fa Shen, you see, was the original victim of the Nyannichaun. The template of the curse, but since Ranma was a reincarnation of her, he was able to free her from her grave. Her awakening last night was completely unexpected, but, it did cause Ranko to figure out who she was and free Ranma and Fa Shen from inside of her."

            Nodoka was struggling to take it all in. She turned to Ranko and tried to puzzle it all out, "So, you took my son's place and thought you were Ranma from the moment he was cursed until last night?" Ranko nodded. "You… this… is the body of the child I actually gave birth to?" she touched Ranko on the shoulder hesitantly and got another nod. 

            "Also, we didn't know about Pops using Togenkyo water to have a son until this morning," Ranko added.

            "And Ranma and this Fa Shen—they both 'woke up' in the wrong bodies, which was why 'Ranko' from the date was suddenly changed to 'Ranneko' when we got home…"

            "Because it would have been too confusing to call her Fa Shen and I wasn't going to give up my identity again," Ranko concluded, shuddering. "It was hard enough to give up being Ranma and Ranma had never really been Ranko. That's me. If I was really Ranma, then the whole time I was being Ranko, I'd have been lying to you, but now it turns out it was the only time I was really me."

            Nodoka closed her eyes and sorted things out in her head some more. She had seen so many impossible things that morning; more than she had ever imagined possible. It had been a stretch to consider the warped version of the curse that boy Kuno had described. Now, she had seen people change sexes and species before her very eyes. She had witnessed her own personal transformation with the restoration of her hair. Magic had always seemed the most elusive thing in the universe, but here she was facing a daughter she had never known she had and SHE was practically stewing in it. 

            Ranko was also rehashing details in her mind, trying to see if they had covered all the angles yet, when something flashed across her mind. The only question that seemed unanswered was how healing her was a threat to Ranma's manhood. She turned slowly toward Mousse, remembering both what he had revealed and the surge of energy that had passed from Ranma to her. It could not escape Nodoka's mind, now that she knew Ranma had awoken in the female reflection, what Ranma had been prepared to do. That was the threat to manhood, but Ranko now understood that the threat had already been realized. All of Ranma's actions the previous night suddenly made sense. She could see in Mousse's eyes that he knew. There was no question Ryouga knew, and no doubt Fa Shen had been informed. The question was, did Nodoka have enough clues to figure this out for herself? Before she could look, her mother's voice intruded plaintively. Clearly, she was already on the right track!

            "Oh! Ranma was going to…!" Nodoka covered her mouth in shock. 

            "Indeed," Happosai studied her passively. "If Fa Shen had remained male, Ranma would have sacrificed his manhood in order to heal Ranko. Personally," he smirked, "I find it ironic that such a noble gesture, such a selfless sacrifice, would no doubt have inspired you to hold your son to that ridiculous contract. If not for this conversation. Of course there remains a problem, doesn't there?"

            "I…" Nodoka looked up at him. She swallowed. "She t… HE tried to warn me in the bath last night. I- I- I may have actually pushed him to do it. But," she paused, reflectively. "You… prevented that. By splashing Fa Shen, you made it so they cannot… well, not as a man and a woman."

            "Not unless one of them becomes male again. The question is, Nodoka, do you have any intention of allowing Ranma to be a man, or would you condemn him to remain female because of some imperfection in his manhood or how he attained it?" Happosai pressed. "I remind you that Ranko is in just as great a need now as she was when your son put his manhood and his life at risk to inform Fa Shen of his intentions."

            "Do… Do you have any more of that To-Togenkyo water?" Nodoka asked, mentally kicking herself for forgetting that Ranma's manhood could indeed be restored. But Happosai shook his head. "Then… how could either of them become male again?"

            "One of them would have to take a curse, a Nanniichaun curse," he clarified, describing it as the compliment to the nyanniichaun. "I should point out, however, that Fa Shen is not inclined to be a man. No, it is Ranma who would wish that. Now, he could lock that curse, hide the girl he is now forever, but there would always be the risk of something unlocking it, revealing the girl inside." He smiled in thoughtful appreciation of that inner girl. He shrugged, "It is in the nature of such a curse to leave its victim half a man, but even so, it is more than man enough to save Ranko. Can your definitions of manhood survive what your son might become?"

            Nodoka was not sure how to answer. The only clue she had of what sort of person he would become, subject to living as both sexes, was the girl beside her. On second thought, if she understood what she had been told, Ranko was a perfect example. For all intents and purposes, she was a female version of her son, a product of the exact same upbringing. Taking her hand, Nodoka asked, "Ranko, are you a boy or a girl? Not… not physically. I mean, if you've been both, can you really be one or the other?"

            "Uh," Ranko scratched her head with her other hand, trying to decide how honest she should be. "Being a girl is sort of what separates me from being Ranma. It's sort of the way I was born. I'm not much of a girl, I suppose, but it's kinda how I see myself. But… I kinda like bein' a boy, too, I suppose. It's kinda strange to think I'm not one—can't be one—anymore. I feel like somethin's missin'. Like, I'm also a boy. I never liked flippin' back and forth 'cuz of the curse, 'cuz I don't like havin' no… not having any control over it. There's just a part of the that only works if I am a boy, so I guess that's why I miss it. I'll miss it more the longer I am like this."

            "Oh dear," Nodoka bit her lip, but forced herself to see the earnest look in the girl's eye as she struggled to explain. "How… how do you think Ranma will feel?" she prompted in dread. 

            Ranko cocked her head in thought. It was not that hard to answer, since that was who she had been for most of what she could remember. "At heart, he's a guy. I think, because of me, he's figured out what it is to be a girl—I think he understands and can be a girl, like I can be a boy. Bein' a boy or a girl changes the people around you more than it changes you, though. You stay the same, but the way people look at you and act around you changes. I can't describe all the things you have to give up to just be one. That's what makes it so hard. I don't think anyone who has been both could give up one and not feel half dead," she confessed. 

            This surprised everyone, most especially Nodoka. "You are saying that Ranma—even you yourself—NEED to go back to being cursed like this? But, if that's so, why did you go through with this cure?" she demanded, thinking back to the part of the story where the cursed teen chose to exploit the mirror for a cure.

            Ranko shrugged. "I really wasn't expecting to be cured. I planned to survive and keep the curse. The only reason I am cured is because of the stuff with the Togenkyo water. The only reason I let the mirror thing go on was because I thought you deserved to have a normal daughter and son," she explained. With a heavy sigh she added, "Just 'cuz I was comfortable with how I was, more or less, doesn't mean it works all that well for the people around me."

            "So, you and Ranma will both want to get cursed again," Nodoka concluded in dismay. "You both feel it's better to be both."

            Ranko nodded, ashamed. Then she firmed and corrected, "I am thinking about getting a boy curse, but what I really want to do is see if I can master it. Fa Shen said that's what people used to do. Get cursed and master it so they could control the transformation and use the advantages they gained from the curse. I already know I can deal with the curse the way it was, but I don't like the idea that I could have mastered it and didn't try. I can't back down from a challenge like that!"

            "Now that sounds like Ranma," Nabiki grinned, shaking her head. 

AN: Reflections is quickly coming to a close, and quite clearly has become something quite different than I had originally intended. From the kind of feedback I was getting from my more vocal readers, a divergence from the original series was welcomed eagerly, so I allowed the story to go where it would, rather than force it down the original path of a "missing episode". This process started with the first intrusion by Fa Shen during the writing of this story, when I had already heard strong suggestions to make this a divergence. Rather than remove the Fa Shen thread, I decided to see how people reacted to where it took the story and I am pleased by the result. I know I let things drift in an entirely original direction before acknowledging this as a divergence, but up until the awakening of Ranma and Fa Shen in their new bodies, it had been possible to still jerk things back into line and smooth things down before the end of the story. Ultimately, I decided it would be more interesting to see where things would go on their own. What I learned from this story taught me what I needed to know to write what I originally had in mind, so a different version of Reflections that fits into the original series is entirely possible. In the future. For now, I am focusing on the end of this story and what will unfold in its sequel. I hope my readers find this an interesting way for Nodoka to learn of Ranma's curse. It naturally evolved into the central crisis of the story. How she deals with a daughter determined to recover her manhood, and a son who is intimately in touch with his womanhood ought to be something of an adventure! Tune in next time as Ranma, Fa Shen and the others are released from the mirror trap and discover the mess Happosai has created for them!


	35. Cutting to the Quick

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Thirty-Five: Cutting to the Quick

A universal feeling of dread greeted the arrival of Ranma and Fa Shen in the mirror trap. At the same time, there was a kind of relief, since the intrusion interrupted the bewildered Akane's rant over the fact that Happosai had been so callous as to trap even her pet pig, P-Chan, and the small commotion as the piglet evaded her attempts to snatch him up into a hug. It had been a small mercy that Akane had already been out of the fight and out of sight when Ryouga was transformed, but after the emotional upheaval following his date with Ranma, he really did not want to face Akane in his cursed form. Compared to the glory of making love with—and Mousse had been correct in his analysis of the lost boy's true feelings—a girl he believed to be Ranma, Akane's misdirected affection had lost most of it's allure. To further bewilder the youngest Tendo daughter, when Ranma collapsed in the faceted chamber, howling her frustration at the way Happosai snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, the little pig rushed to the red-head in an effort to console her. 

            "Dammit! We were so close!!!" Ranma cried, slamming her fist uselessly into the floor of their prison. In her mind flashed the scenes of Fa Shen's and her father's transformations, then her own effort to reclaim her identity, in spite of the dire consequences she could expect from Nodoka seeing her son revealed as a girl. There was no longer any hiding from her mother, and even if it killed her, there was a kind of relief that it had finally happened. However, the one consolation she had hoped for was that the warped, demented and perverted old man who had damned her would be the first to die. "All we had to do was finish him off!"

            Fa Shen grabbed her twin, once again marveling at the sight of her own hand and its testament to her restoration, and hugged Ranma awkwardly from the side. "I'm so sorry, Ranma! It was my fault! I was so sure he was dead I… my overconfidence sucked you into dropping your guard too."

            Ranma felt the warmth of her arms, and heard the self-recrimination in her voice, and quickly mastered her disappointment. "No. He's duped us all so many times, I should have known to be careful anyway. I just… I hope there's someone out there who can finish the job. He looked really bad, even Kasumi could take him at this point," Ranma snorted in dark amusement. She finally noticed Ryouga squatting pensively in front of her, looking up at her with big, damp eyes full of angst and concern. "Hey, P-Chan," she offered a faint smile, picking him up and hugging him gently. 

            Akane stared in abject disbelief. "B-but, but, P-Chan HATES you…"

            The pig snorted in disagreement, turning a pained eye to Akane and then cuddling closer to Ranma's bosom. The image of Ranma's face, as he ran up to her, full of loss and shame and fatal resignation had sent a cold chill through Ryouga's heart. It was too easy to guess what she assumed would happen now that she had been revealed to her mother. It had been too easy to see that she accepted her fate, the certainty in her mind that Nodoka would make her commit seppuku. He knew that was not the case. Rather the opposite, Nodoka would expect Ranma to embrace her "revealed" gender and marry, and what had begun between them suddenly was free to grow without obstacles. Unfortunately, he had no voice and could not tell her. He could not let her know there was no more pressure to be a man, no reason to fear her feelings for him. 

            At the same time, the certainty of death had already freed Ranma from any fear of openly embracing the one she loved. Because Akane was present, Ranma said nothing as she held P-Chan. Even now, she would not break the promise that forbid her from revealing his curse. Instead, she just held him, marveling at the paradox of her emotions. Like the pledge to protect his secret, his weakness, the feelings came to her second hand. Just the same, the boy she had been all of her natural life had woken in the grip of those feelings, and the sensations evoked to express them. Whether she wanted to or not, she did love Ryouga. That had allowed "Ranko" to become a girl, and now it allowed Ranma to embrace all the experiences leading up to that moment as part of his own life. As far as she could tell, being a girl, physically or psychologically, did not really make Ranma less of a man. Seeing that she was doomed to die for it, she really had no reason at this point to not be more of a woman. 

            The sight of Ranma silently hugging P-Chan was enough to strike everyone dumb. Fa Shen's mind had followed the same path as Ranma's, and knowing about the intimacy between her and Ryouga, understood the dull horror of her twin's situation. Akane was just baffled. Unable to understand the behavior of either her pet or her "fiancé" it did not occur to her to explain to Ranma what she had learned that morning about Ranma's conception and Nodoka's intentions, if her "son" turned out to be a daughter. Soun and Genma, however, possessed a few more facts than Fa Shen, Ranma or Akane, and unlike Ryouga, were capable of expressing them. Naturally, they huddled off to the side and did so in their traditional manner by plotting. Aware that P-Chan was actually Ryouga, and knowing that Ranma was quite aware of this too, her behavior was quite revealing to the two fathers. If the pair were not painfully aware of the consequences of what Nodoka had witnessed, the sight would have disturbed and enraged them. 

            "Genma-kun," Soun began, acknowledging with the very way he addressed his old friend that their dream of uniting Ranma and Akane was dead. "It appears that the 'girl training' undertaken by the former 'Ranko' has borne unexpected fruit."

            Genma swallowed hard, his mind shrieking in denial and frustration, but nodded. "It appears so."

            "I have noticed that, er—Ryouga…?—Ryouga seems to have picked up and incorporated a great deal of Anything Goes Martial Arts in his, ah, rivalry with your s… child," Soun elaborated, thoughtfully. 

            "He lacks much in the way of proper training and discipline, however, he possesses some extraordinary talent and potential."

            "And, regrettably, no few flaws to offset them. In spite of this, he is the closest thing your child has to a peer."

            "Ranma would not be the martial artist he… she is today, without him."

            "Agreed. Agreed."

            "It… it grieves my heart to think that it would come to this. Still, knowing what Nodoka intends, at least… at least there is some chance in this that Ranma could be able to live up to her expectations. It would be… unbearable… for all of us, if he… she was doomed to fail a second time," Genma sighed. Though his original fear, the seppuku pledge, had been dissolved, he had feared this happening with equal intensity. It was ironic that the Jusenkyo curse had proved to be the lesser threat, and that an equal danger had lain unnoticed all this time. It would have been better to never have had a son than to lose him in this fashion. "The joining of the schools will have to wait for the next generation, my old friend."

            "Indeed. It seems there really is no rest for the wicked," Soun smiled grimly, seeing their dreams of retirement evaporate like the morning fog. It had been a minor miracle that Soun Tendo had become a respected member of his community. Now, for past misdeeds in the service of the same man who now shattered their aspirations, the kami had deemed it fit to deny Soun and Genma their fulfillment. 

            Genma adjusted his glasses and paused in thought for a moment, before announcing, "Well, if any of the girls had managed to finish Happosai off, Nabiki would have released us all by now. I suspect we will have more than enough time to break the news to the children." With a heavier heart than he had ever borne, he rose to his feet and approached Ranma. Clearing his throat for attention, he proceeded to explain to her all that had been revealed that morning in her absence, and the consequences she now faced. By the time he was done, Ranma was completely shell-shocked. In all the ways she might have imagined that her manhood would be undermined, she had never once suspected her very conception was in question. Just as she had resolved to preserve what remained of her manhood, by facing her death with dignity, even that was stripped from her. At the same time, the thing she had known would ultimately be denied to her, any hope of pursuing what she had started with Ryouga—however it had actually happened—was being thrust upon her with the same implacability as her original engagement to Akane. 

            "Y-you you WANT me to marry RYOUGA!?" she roared. 

            P-Chan squeaked in terror, at this perceived rejection. 

            "I believe Nodoka can be convinced to go along with it. She made it very clear that she considers it her daughter's obligation to produce a grandson who can grow up to be a man-among-men," Genma clarified, soberly. With a deep sigh, he continued, "I know this is very difficult for you, Ranma. It is certainly not what I would have ever desired. If… if you don't want to be married to him, I won't suggest it, however, your mother will see you married to a man."

            Ranma cringed. The very idea made seppuku seem delightful. She knew in her bones that it would be very difficult to put herself into the position she had been in with Ryouga with any other man. Not impossible. Sex was fun. All she needed was a female body to know that temptation, however, marriage was a lot more to deal with than she was prepared for, even with Ryouga. Meeting Ryouga's eyes, she tried to convey this to him silently. Even more terrifying, the thought of her mother turning her into a "lady" made her insides twist in agony. Her mind flipped back to a moment, facing Copy-chan, where she was confronted with the prospect of following in her mother's footsteps. True, it had been the person she now thought of as Ranko who had that experience, but it was passed on to Ranma with everything else. If she tried to trace the route that thought had to follow to end up in her head now, the world spun and her skull ached. Too much of who she was remained the boy she had always been. In a small voice, she protested, "I can't do it. I can't not be a boy. She… she can't take that away from me. I'll go insane…"

            P-Chan's eyes widened, as he finally understood her reaction. 

            It was at this point that Akane crouched down across from her and stared her in the eye. "Ranma…" she began hesitantly. Her mind raced through the weeks events, the stages that the current Ranko had gone through as Ranma's identity was torn away from her. She bit her lip and frowned, before coming up with an idea. "Maybe… maybe you don't have to."

            "What?" Ranma froze, focusing to meet her gaze. 

            "I mean, what about Ranko?"

            "What about Ranko?" Ranma frowned. 

            "Well, technically, she's Nodoka's daughter. She's got the original body. She's a lot more comfortable with the idea of being a girl. You're not alone in this. Don't you think you should at least talk to her, find out if she might be able to handle this obligation better than you?" Akane pointed out. "You might not be a perfect man to Nodoka, but that's no reason for you to abandon being a man altogether if you don't want to, right?"

            Ranma grasped onto what her former fiancée was saying. It went without saying that if she did go back to China to regain her manhood, it would be enough for their fathers to renew the engagement. That alone would kill any possibility of being with Ryouga. While she did not want to be forced to marry him, anymore than she wanted to be forced to marry Akane, she did love him. He was willing to get a nyanniichaun curse just to be with her if she reclaimed her manhood with the nanniichaun. Because of her parents, Ranma realized, she could not escape marriage. She could only choose between Ryouga and Akane. Swallowing, she hardened her gaze and pointed out, "You know what will happen if I become a guy again, Akane."

            "I… I know. That's not really the point, though," she looked down. "The point is, you have to be who you are. You have to be able to live with yourself. You've been a guy all your life, and well, from what I've learned, all babies start out female in the womb. They taught us that in school. Something causes some of them to become boys, and it doesn't really matter if it's genetic or magic. You were born a boy. You grew up as one. Just because there's something out there that can turn you into a girl… all that does is give you a choice. I think you deserve the right to make a choice, Ranma."

            Ranma stared at her in amazement. In that moment, Ranma saw in her the same concern, the same compassion and friendship, the same support she had glimpsed in Ryouga when they opened up on their date. Somewhere along the way, Akane had seen Ranma as a genuine human being, and empathized with her. Ranma was instantly reminded of the moment when she offered friendship to a strange, awkward and lonely girl. In all the days that followed, the person who had been Ranma had been unable to determine if Akane had genuinely cared about him. Now, for the real Ranma, she had extended the same hand of friendship, with entirely different words, but with far more substance. The many feelings she had inherited towards Akane had been missing one vital ingredient, one simple thing. As that feeling suddenly sparked in Ranma's heart, she did not know if it was hope, or faith, or gratitude, but combined with everything else, the fledgling emotion she had struggled to understand suddenly matured into love. It was agonizing, since it immediately threatened to tear her heart in two different directions. At the same time, this love found her love for Ryouga and in the brief struggle they found each other to be true. Her eyes widened in surprise, as she became aware of her choices, the difficult, damning choices, she faced. 

            For a moment, Ranma forgot to breathe. Instead of having reached the end of the road, she now saw it was an unexpected turn. The path now ahead of her split into a fork, but she had a good number of steps to take before she was forced to choose. For the sake of Ranko alone, it was necessary to reclaim what she had lost. She hesitated to think how much harder than choosing between those who wanted her, choosing between those she wanted, would be. At least she could fight her way into a position where she could really make that choice. Just as she felt things begin to spin, she sucked in a sharp breath. Akane glanced up at the sound and Ranma met her eyes. There was something in the dark haired girl's eyes, something that responded to the gleam in her own. Rather than try to hide it, Ranma just smiled faintly and said, "Thanks, Akane."

            Unnoticed by either of them, Soun and Genma silently thanked her too.

Nodoka had wandered into the back yard, deep in troubled thought, after confirming through Ranko the somewhat bi-polar gender she could expect in her new daughter and former son. Her head was spinning from the convoluted history that had been so recently unraveled. After viewing the tape showing Ranma's curse, Nodoka was having a hard time keeping Ranma and Ranko separate in her mind. That struck her as odd, because she was so used to believing they were two unrelated people. Twice, she had seen the dark haired boy turn into a red haired girl. Once in person and once on the tape. Impossibly, neither time had it truly been Ranma she had seen. The first time, she now knew, it had been Fa Shen. The drowned girl. Nodoka still could not make heads or tails of that part of things. What was a mother to make of the previous incarnation of her own child, in the flesh? It did lend strength to the argument that her son really should have been a girl. It did not help when she had also been shown the transformation of her "mythical" son into a person she was well familiar with. Ranko. It was so difficult to imagine Ranko had only come into existence with the curse. That was partly Happosai's fault for asserting that Ranko was the girl Ranma should have been, and Nodoka had clung to that idea citing the curse as the means she used to escape from her upbringing and assert herself. It did not help that she knew Ranko and Ranma was a complete stranger to her. It especially did not help that she had spent more than a decade nurturing such hopes about her son. 

            She could understand Happosai's actions now, at least. There had been so much she had not known, so much no one had known until the last minute. Nodoka could imagine what would have happened if she had learned of the curse before the mirror incident revealed all the things the curse had hidden. Ranko would still believe she was Ranma, Ranma and Fa Shen would have remained locked up somewhere inside her, and Nodoka would have concluded, based on the Ranko she knew, that "Ranma" was a man-among-men. The curse would have been a blemish upon her son, but the contract had always hinged on evaluating her son as a person more than a thing. Nodoka would have encouraged her son to rise above the curse or find a way to remove it, and she would have also encouraged his marriage to Akane to satisfy the pact between their families. Under those circumstances, "Ranko" would have died. Nodoka would have anguished over the loss of a girl she had come to love as a daughter. Every time Ranma's curse was activated, she'd see that girl again, but she would have to treat her as her son. It would haunt her, taunt her, torture her so that she never forgot what she had to lose to regain her son. 

            Happosai had forced her to confront a very different problem. By declaring Ranko the daughter she should have had, he had made it clear that Ranko could fulfill the obligation she expected to pass on to Ranma if the truth of his conception was ever revealed. By restoring Fa Shen, Happosai had forcibly ended the deception that was dividing her family and allowed Ranma, who had been stuck as a girl by some whim of fate, to reclaim her identity. As the story came out, Happosai had pointed out how Ranma had used the distraction of the fight to swap places with Fa Shen, who had been caught off guard and forced to pose as her son when they confronted her that morning. Happosai had even suggested why Ranma did so, believing that Nodoka would enforce the contract once the dust settled. Ranma did not even hesitate, in the face of certain death, to prevent another from dying in her place. That was incredibly manly, Nodoka thought, and as Happosai and Ranko both attested, and as she understood, she had been as willing to sacrifice her manhood to heal Ranko. Just as certainly, Ranma would endure another curse to regain that manhood. It was too much to believe that, somehow, she could get her son back. The only problem was the other thing Happosai and Ranko forced her to see. Her very manly son might have a need, a desire, to be female—at least on a part time basis. 

            That was the lingering mark of the curse, the price of surviving Fa Shen's resurrection. Ranma considered himself a boy, much as Ranko considered herself a girl, but they had both accepted the opposite sex as a valid and necessary part of being who they were. This was too difficult for Nodoka to understand. On one hand, it seemed obvious that truly understanding what it was like to be a woman could only make Ranma a better man. On the other hand, it was so perverse. In her traditional mind set, men and women were clear cut, mutually exclusive entities. Black and white. Yin and Yang. It just was not proper to blur the lines. But, as a mother, it grieved her to think that it could hurt her child, her children, to be forced to conform to such conventional roles. Ranko had stated quite plainly that it would hurt them, _"I don't think anyone who has been both could give up one and not feel half dead." _It was enough to make a mother want to scream and cry at the injustice. 

            Maybe if this last week had gone differently, maybe if Ranko had not been forced to cope with the loss of Ranma's identity and find some other way to define herself, she would have felt it possible and necessary to find a cure for the curse, to return to being the boy she believed herself to be. She had been able to get that admission out of her, before retreating to think. After hearing Ranko explain what Happosai was driving at with his "negotiations", Nodoka had pressed, "You say that, because of you, Ranma figured out what it is to be a girl. Until last night, you did not know you were not Ranma, so, how could this have happened? What really happened?"

            Ranko schooled her thoughts. Happosai had forced the story out into the open, but what had been explained was more of an outline than a real explanation. "When I was Ranma, I always thought of myself as a guy, even when I was in my girl form. I mean, yeah, I'd be female and I had to deal with a lot of stuff that was girly an' stuff, but I never really pictured myself as a girl. I was always lookin' for a cure, a way to go back to being a guy, full time. It wasn't until after the last trip to the mirror, when the reflections got all the memories of bein' Ranma that I really stopped to think about some of the things I'd experienced as a girl," Ranko looked inward, trying to recover the thoughts leading up to her epiphany. "With the reflections, especially Copy-kun, I'd noticed how he brought somethin' out of me that made me… well, feel like a girl, feel like that was normal an' all. I realized that had been happening a lot, when I'd be in certain situations, but I never really noticed it or I pushed it off and tried not to think about it 'cuz I didn't wanna be too comfortable with bein' a girl. I mean, I told myself that I'd just gotten used to my curse. 

            "Well, when the reflections had all my memories, I realized they would be Ranma and Ranko from then on, so I was trying to think of who I was supposed to be," Ranko returned to the point. "It bugged me to give up bein' Ranma, but I'd already accepted it was best. It surprised me that I was upset about givin' up Ranko too. I suddenly realized that pretendin' to be Ranko had allowed me to become a different person from Ranma. A girl. I couldn't see that I was Ranko until I totally gave up bein' Ranma." Ranko sighed and looked down in remembered misery. "Of course, at the same time I realized I had to give that up too. We didn't know about Fa Shen yet. Pops had told me you had always wished for a daughter, when he came up with the idea of havin' the male copy be Ranma. I thought you'd probably want a normal daughter just as much as you wanted a normal son, so I let the female copy be Ranko. Of course, she was still stuck thinkin' of herself as Ranma in a girl's body. 

            "I was the only one who understood what it was to be a girl, and when I tried to explain it, they didn't really understand how it happened," Ranko pointed out, looking up again to see if Nodoka was following her. "Anyway, Akane came up with this idea of setting Ranko up on a date with Ryouga, since Copy-chan had fallen in love with him and she'd been a girl. The idea was that those feelings for Ryouga might help Ranko become a girl. Fa Shen waking up was unexpected and it sorta messed things up. She dragged me into this sort of dream where we met, and then found Ranma. You already know that part, and how he woke up in the female body as Fa Shen was waking up in the male body. Ranma would have woken up in a mind that had just figured out how to be a girl, so that's how it's my fault he can be one."

            Nodoka had immediately thought of the conversations she had with "Ranko" on that date, and the sudden change in the girl when she came back from her walk with Ryouga. Nodoka had been worried, both by the length of their absence and her concern about what the girl had confessed. She could attest to how suddenly "Ranko" had embraced her femininity, and how eager she had seemed to confirm it. Nodoka certainly had suspected her of indulging, in spite of her warnings, when she undressed the girl and she was missing her panties. That had been bothering her, as Happosai drove home his point that Ranma might fight to regain his manhood, but might not eschew his recently acquired womanhood. As Nodoka stood now, gazing into the koi pond, she noticed the clothes floating in it. The billowing, heavy robes of the Chinese boy, and the sturdy travel clothes Ryouga had been wearing. She sighed, automatically bending to retrieve the articles, but as she gathered up Ryouga's outfit, she noticed a piece that did not belong. She had helped "Ranko" dress for the date, and had insisted on the black silk panties to match the rest of her outfit. She had no trouble recognizing them when they floated out of Ryouga's shirt as she pulled it out of the water. The boy's clothes dropped from her nerveless fingers as she collapsed heavily to her knees. 

            Suddenly, she did not need to ask how Ranma had learned that sex would generate ki that would heal Ranko. She could not even utter her shock. The scene in the bathroom with "Ranneko" returned. Before bathing, the girl had disposed of the tampon, and Nodoka had noted faintly that the girl seemed to have a very light flow. Not that mere spotting was unusual for an irregularity in a period. Now that she thought about it, though, the blood had stained the wrong end of the tampon. Nodoka closed her eyes. How many times had she been fooled because she wanted to be? At the same time, she recollected Ranneko's concern about the threat to Ranma's manhood, the way she had accused her self of being the threat. It was incredible how very honest her child was in her deceit. Nodoka tried to imagine what it meant, that she broke up with Ryouga, remembering that she brought the boy to his knees with a few words. Nodoka hoped this meant the girl had lost her virginity before her son awoke. At the same time, Ranma knew then how to cure Ranko, and struggled with her desire to help and the consequences of doing so, begging Nodoka to tell her what she expected of her son. Trying to make her understand the connection between girl and boy, and the necessity for one of them to "die" for the other to live. Even confessing the absurdity of abandoning the refuge of her present form, her adopted identity, to accept the death her mother promised her. For the first time, Nodoka could understand the pain and suffering of her son. The efforts he had gone to, not just to protect himself, but to protect her from suffering a fatal disappointment. 

            Picking up the panties and crumpling them in her hand, she realized that there was no price her son would not pay to do what he felt was right. At that moment, she could hardly fathom the state of his honor, or the impact it could have on family honor, but the integrity he showed in this impossible situation was inspiring. "Oh, my son!" she hugged herself and hunched forward as tears erupted from the depths of her soul. 

As soon as Nodoka wandered out to think, Ranko turned to Happosai and asked him when he planned to let everyone out. This roused the others to jump in and comment on all of the dirty tricks he had pulled that morning. This was accompanied by no few threats, and ominous predictions of the suffering he would endure when those he had trapped were free to take their revenge. Considering that Happosai was almost as weak as Ranko, the old master was somewhat concerned, as he too believed that Soun, Genma, Ranma, Fa Shen, Akane and Ryouga would be eager to resume the battle once they were free. In spite of the fact that Happosai had intended to see the mess with Nodoka cleared up, he had not meant to reveal the truth in such a spectacular fashion. His pride, temper and impulsiveness had gotten the better of him. True, it had been great fun. He was quite impressed that the heirs to his school, and a couple of their friends, had managed to beat him to a stand still. That finishing move by Nabiki and Kasumi would endure in his memory as one of the most brilliant pieces of improvisation in combat he had ever encountered. All three of the Tendo sisters deserved recognition for that one, as it had been Akane's cooking that finally took the fight out of him. 

Brushing a tear of sentiment from his eye, Happosai finally answered Ranko's question. "I really don't plan to keep them locked up much longer. I need to see what Nodoka intends to do about Ranma, and I am in no condition to resume the fight. I won, fair and square, and I think that entitles me to some rest," he pronounced. 

            "You did NOT win, you old goat. You just barely saved your own skin," Ranko grumbled. "If you had not taken hostages, Mom would have taken your head. And don't go sayin' you fixed this mess, since you also made it impossible for Ranma and Fa Shen to heal me, for all sorts of reasons!" Ranko lowered her voice and leaned in close to him, "Do you have any idea the kind of hell on Earth we'll get if Mom figured out about Ranma and Ryouga?"

            Mousse, ever the one with a sharp ear out, turned roughly towards Ranko and asked, in his normal clarion voice, "Oh? When did you figure out he popped her cherry?"

            This made all of the girls, and even Cologne, stutter and gape in shock. 

            "Who?" Cologne inquired, with a sly smile.

            "What!?" Nabiki, Ukyo and Shampoo reared up. 

            "Oh! Oh my!" Kasumi fanned herself, blushing. 

            "Mousse!!!" Ranko fumed. With a sharp glare she let him know he was signing his name under Happosai's on the hit list. "Just shout it to the world, you blind idiot! Are you insane!?" 

            Nabiki was already shuffling facts, considering means, motive and opportunity, and quickly boiled down the probable who, when, where and why. "What" was already obvious, once Ranko endorsed the slip by challenging Mousse. "I don't believe it!" Nabiki laughed. "Sounds like Ryouga hit a home run on his date last night!" That made the fiancées choke in disbelief, but the frantic looks on Ranko's and Mousse's faces left them no grounds for voicing denial. Nabiki just hugged herself and tried to stop laughing long enough to add, "I wonder if it happened before or after Ranma woke up!? It's too rich! This could only happen to Ranma!"

            Shampoo and Ukyo turned to each other, remembering the way Ranma had been acting when she got home, and what she said about her awakening. It sure did not sound like Ranma woke up in the middle of a "fight" with Ryouga. Shampoo remembered her joke about Ranma getting knocked out and knocked up with instant, blushing, chagrin. "Oh! Shampoo be sick! Shampoo think Ranma wake up during!"

            That was too much for Ukyo. She snatched up her spatula and shot to her feet, "I'm gonna kill that pig!"

            "Ukyo! Keep it down!" Ranko begged, snatching a glimpse outside to where her mother was pacing in thought.

            Cologne was trying, with all her dignity, to contain herself, but a shared look with Shampoo, who was staring at her with horrified realization, forced her to release a cackle of mirth. When she seemed unlikely to stop, the others regrouped around the table and stared at her in suspicion. Nabiki narrowed her eyes, "I admit, it's funny as hell, but, I get the feeling she's laughing about something more than I am. Come on, Granny, spit it out."

            Cologne struggled to get a grip on herself, gesturing to Shampoo to spell things out. With a heavy sigh, shaking her purple head, Shampoo tried. "Great-Grandmother tell you all, Ranma and Ranko both amazon womans by reincarnation. In tribe, there three steps in marriage. Is first, must face future husband in combat to show strength. If man can defeat amazon woman is then she must give kiss of marriage if she want claim husband. Even if woman can beat man most time, if even one time man defeat in battle, she can claim. Even if woman no sure, can always kiss later and take man to bed for make marriage bond. If woman no want husband, but just good time, she be very careful no kiss if he ever beat in past."

            Cologne finally got her breath back and picked the thread up, while everyone stared in growing comprehension. "Ahem. In spite of the fact that Ranma regularly defeats Ryouga, when he first mastered the shishihokodan, Ryouga defeated Ranma several times in quick succession. If it should be found that Ranma kissed him, declared her love, and then slept with him, Ryouga is now Ranma's husband by amazon law."

            Ranko swallowed hard. "But, it wasn't really Ranma who started it. I mean, if he woke up in the middle of it… and for that matter it was actually me who fought Ryouga… it can't apply, can it?" she entreated. 

            Cologne paused thoughtfully and then amended, "Those are good points, and from the interpretation of marriage laws as they apply to you and Shampoo, such that he would not be considered Shampoo's husband if you did not qualify, it could be argued that the marriage is not valid. However, this would take a ruling of the council to resolve since Ranma was technically a part of you during all your past battles. They might well decide that you, and not Ranma, have the valid claim to Ryouga—or he to you—and that you consummated the marriage by proxy."

            "What…?" Ranko asked in a very dead tone. 

            "Well, to establish that this does not involve Ranma, it would be necessary to reveal the actual circumstances, and thus, let it be known that this union was consummated by a projection of you," Cologne elaborated with a fierce grin.  

            "No way!" Ukyo shouted. 

            "Not good! Shampoo already claim Ranko her Airen! Shampoo no lose to lost boy!" Shampoo joined Ukyo in towering rage. 

            "And I have to conclude my challenge for Ranko to be my wife!" Mousse cried, panicking at the thought of seeing his plans shattered so unexpectedly. "Even if she consummated a marriage with Ryouga, the council must rule on Shampoo's claim, and that gives me time to make my own claim!"

            Cologne sighed, "This is true Mousse. As Ranko did not personally engage in this activity, it would take a ruling of the council to declare her responsible for that act. It would be wise, I think, for Ranma to be informed of the legal specifics before she ventures into any other, ah, indulgences."

            "What about Fa Shen?" Happosai asked, grinning madly through the whole exchange. He was quite familiar with certain quirks of amazon law, and it was not impossible for them to be interpreted in such a way that a person in Ranma's situation could end up legally married to him or herself. 

            "As far as I recall, there has only been one fight between Ranma and Fa Shen, and as it happens, Fa Shen currently resides in the incarnation she fought against. Since they are both amazons, only a formal marriage challenge can set the ball rolling, so the two of them could make like a pile of bunnies and it would not make one whit of difference," Cologne smirked. 

            "So, I might be married to Ryouga because he's not an amazon," Ranko fumed. She searched her self and easily found the foundation of emotions for Ryouga that Ranma had apparently embraced, either as "Ranko" or as a consequence of what she started. It did not escape her that Ryouga was the one good reason Ranma had to be a girl. That had been the whole point, after all. If Ranma fell for it, it was a safe bet she could too. It was not a completely horrifying thought, but the very idea of competing against Ranma, or watching Ryouga try to chose between them, was very disturbing. 

            Just then, the sound of Nodoka crying out in the yard caught everyone's attention. She had collapsed next to the koi pond, clutching a bit of black fabric in her hand as she hugged herself and cried with great, racking sobs. Ranko was instantly alarmed, and began to struggle to make her body take her out to her mother's side. There was no lack of strength in her body, but a kind of paralysis of will that made it so hard to command her own limbs. So, she shot to her feet, and then her body stopped receiving commands as that one impulse sapped all her psychic energy. Ukyo was there to catch her before she toppled over in an uncoordinated heap. By the time the girl had the leverage to help Ranko walk, Nodoka had risen to her feet and shaken off her outburst of grief. Standing tall and proud, she turned and reentered the house. She paused, to lay a comforting hand on Ranko's cheek, then pressed on to confront the master.

            "I need to speak to my son," she commanded. 

The people inside the mirror had begun to despair of ever being released by the time the portal over head lit up, alerting them that someone had opened the mirror. It was with some surprise that they saw Nabiki appear at the mouth of their prison, and then drop, as if choreographed, right into her father's outstretched arms. There followed a bit of commotion as everyone tried to ask at once what had happened, why she was being trapped, what Happosai was up to now and if he was still weak enough for them to finish off if they managed to escape. Nabiki cleared her throat and called for silence before making her announcement. 

            "Happosai is as helpless as a baby. Fa Shen's final attack took the fight out of him and a bowl full of Akane's cooking put him down for the count," she declared. She quickly described the end of the fight. "Once she understood that he had you all hostage, Nodoka realized she could not finish him off. He offered to negotiate, and we called in reinforcements. Cologne and Shampoo came over, and so did Ukyo and Dr. Tofu. Between Cologne and Tofu, Happosai is under control, but here's the bad news." Nabiki paused dramatically. When everyone was about to burst, she dropped the bomb. "Happosai told Nodoka the truth. Everything."

            There was instant mayhem. The two fathers ran around the faceted chamber shouting in anguish that they were all doomed, while Ranma squared herself, meeting Nabiki's eye. "How did she take it? Pops an' everyone explained the Togenkyo thing to me when I got here. I dunno if she still wants to make a girl out of me or what, but…" she shrugged, trusting Nabiki to guess what she had been thinking.

            "After she thought about it, she said she needed to speak to you. Happosai tried to make her understand about Ranko and Fa Shen, and pointed out a lot of reasons why she should let you decide about being a man again. She clammed up, though, saying she wants to speak to her 'son'. Happosai sent me in to explain what was going on and to warn you not to attack him. Ranko 'gave her word as a martial artist' to protect him, but she's just a hostage to get you all out. So, you have to kill him later, people," Nabiki warned, with a sharp gleam in her eye. She then pulled something out of her pocket and handed it to Ranma. "Before I went in, Nodoka told me to give this to you."

            Ranma took the wad of black cloth from Nabiki's hand and shook it out. With a gasp, she recognized the panties Ryouga had kept as a souvenir of their date. P-Chan gave a strangled, piggish wail and tried to snatch the panties out of Ranma's hands. On pure reflex, she jerked them out of his reach and commanded, "Stop it, P-Chan!" Rubbing her fingers over the silk, letting it sink in what it meant for her mother to give her this, she ignored the questions that came from the others. With a heavy sigh, she looked down at the pig and caught his eyes. "She knows," she acknowledged, sagging in defeat.

            Ranma had spent much of the time waiting, trying to think up ways to convince her mother to accept her intentions to become a man again. Akane had given her a reason to fight, to make her own voice heard for once, but Nodoka had found a way to silence her without a word. Before anyone could react to her cryptic declaration, the world tipped on it's side and the group tumbled across the grass of the Tendo back yard in a pile. 

            Looking up they spotted Nodoka, standing on the edge of the engawa with the mirror upturned in one hand, the other poised to pat it again on the back. "Oh, my. How can anyone get used to things like this?" she muttered to herself, before examining the people struggling to their feet. As she spotted the girl dressed in the distinctive Chinese clothes, a bit of steel went into her posture. Not taking her eyes off of Ranma, she declared, "I need to speak to my son. Everyone, please go inside and take a seat. We will be with you shortly."

            Ranma remained where she was, studying her mother's face in desperate hope of some clue about where this interrogation would lead. The others quickly filed inside and Nodoka finally approached her child. Allowing the warmth, love and longing of a decade to fill her face, she pulled the girl into her arms. "Oh, my son! My Ranma! Too many times I have thought I'd found you. I can hardly believe this time it is you."

            Ranma instantly melted in her embrace, her arms going around her mother with a gentle strength that belied her delicate stature. "Mom!" It was all she could say. It seemed like she had so much to apologize for, so many disappointments to make up for, but even the speech she had meant to make, to address all her failings, had been rendered pointless by her mother's message. In a very real sense, her mother had caught Ranma at her very worst and most inexcusable, but her greeting conveyed nothing but love. 

            After a moment, Nodoka relaxed and held her child at arms length to look in her eyes. Ranma looked back openly, sad but unashamed, and that made Nodoka pause. Her eyes traveled down and she saw the underwear clenched in one of Ranma's hands. Looking up, and taking that hand in her own to draw attention to what it carried, she asked, "Would you explain this to me?"

            Ranma glanced down at her hand and back up. It seemed beyond her to explain the complex situation that she had fallen into. The actions themselves were unimportant, though. The reason why was what her mother needed to understand. "Copy-chan only wanted one thing in her short existence. Ranko gave it to her, and… and I hold onto it for both of them. I didn't see any reason to keep Ryouga from having something to hold onto too."

            Nodoka took the girl's chin in her hand and tilted her head up a bit. "Was it you?" she asked. 

            "The last time," Ranma admitted. 

            Nodoka gave a questioning look. 

            "I… it was happening when I woke up. It was… overwhelming. I didn't even know what it was until I recovered enough to find the memories. It was all over before I knew what I had done, and then… I had to be her to deal with it."

            "Do… do you feel what she felt?"

            "I have to, or I can't… I can't live with it."

            "You love him."

            "I…" Ranma looked down. "I don't really have a choice."

            Nodoka nodded sadly. Clearing her throat, she corrected, "Actually, you do have a choice, but from this I can see it will not be an easy one for you to make." She turned, still holding Ranma's hand, and led her into the house. Ranma noticed that Happosai was sitting in Ranko's lap, her hand pressed to his chest protectively. She looked so weak. The only real protection she could offer the old man was her commitment to putting herself between him and all harm. Meeting her eye, Ranma understood. It was almost frightening how much understanding there was between them. Ranma saw P-Chan waiting for her, saving her a seat around the table, and moved over to pick up the piglet and kneel. Nodoka saw this as she sat down to Ranma's left. Without a word, she picked up the tea kettle and poured the pair of them a drink. She finished this normal, domestic gesture by dumping the remaining contents of the kettle over P-Chan, catching everyone by surprise. 

            "RYOUGA!!!" Akane was instantly on her feet, a column of spectral fury erupting from her shaking form. 

            Ryouga, was so stunned by Nodoka's action that he did not react immediately. He was much too large in human form for Ranma's lap, so he had slid down on his but and now leaned back into the petite girl, his legs akimbo, and nothing but a brilliant shade of red to wear. Nodoka casually glanced down and smiled in appreciation of the boy's endowments. Lifting her eyes, ignoring the efforts of Shampoo, Ukyo, Mousse and Fa Shen to restrain Akane, she questioned Ryouga, point blank, "Ryouga-chan, do you love Ranma?"

            Ryouga, suddenly realizing it was not a nightmare, scrabbled to cover himself and hide behind Ranma. His eyes darted over where a cloud of dust and debris shrouded the five teens on the other side of the room, and cringed at the sound of Akane revealing her entire repertoire of curses and threats. The shouts and cries of those trying to subdue her drowned much of it out. While few people would find much to praise about Akane's cooking, everyone would agree that it was creative, and she was investing all of this talent in naming the many ways she intended to serve Ryouga on a platter. If he was not paralyzed with fear, he would have already raced out of the house, clothes or no clothes. 

            "Ryouga-chan?" Nodoka waved a hand in front of his face. 

            With a start Ryouga turned and focused on her, "Huh?"

            "Do you love Ranma?" Nodoka repeated. 

            Ryouga felt the girl he was hiding behind go stiff in anticipation of his answer. Without even thinking, he slipped his arms around her from behind and hugged her to him, firmly but gently, "I do."

            The quiet, confident response cut through the chaos across the room, and Akane sat bolt upright, dislodging the people piled on top of her. "I don't believe it!"

            Ryouga turned to her, trying not to cringe, "It was your idea, Akane."

            Akane blinked. "You pervert!" There were tears of grief and betrayal streaming down her face. Denied her vengeance, the true emotions that moved her finally took over. "I hate you! I never want to see you again!"

            Ryouga flinched in agony, his long held dread finally realized, and only the feel of Ranma in his arms could keep those words from slashing his heart to ribbons. "A-Akane…"

            "Shut up! I thought you were my friend!" she sobbed in anger. "You… you… bastard! You were using me! J-just like… just like you're using Ranma!" she pointed, the anger and betrayal truly evoking hatred as she tipped over the edge. "Well! You can't have him! Ranma is MY fiancé and YOU CAN'T HAVE HIM!!!" she roared, her mind running down that familiar road, lured on by a shared look as she opened up to Ranma in the mirror trap. 

            Nodoka, unaware of the history of Akane and P-Chan, listened to this and frowned in motherly concern. "Oh, dear. This is what I was afraid of."

            Everyone looked at her.

            Nodoka heaved a heavy breath and turned to Ranma, as Akane paused to see what she was about to drop on Ranma. "Ranma, my son. I see two choices for you. You can remain my daughter, and marry Ryouga… after… after…" she cut herself off. "If it were not for your engagement to Akane, the pact between our two families, you would HAVE to marry Ryouga after last night. If… if you truly wish to return to being my son, then, then you will marry Akane. I… I won't forbid you to take the curse in any case. To preserve your honor as a girl, as MY daughter, you must marry Ryouga. To preserve the honor of the family, you must marry Akane. Because… because you cannot do both, you must decide which one to be with, and by that, whether you are my son or my daughter."

            "Nodoka…" Genma came over to her side, and stared at her in bewilderment. He searched for her eyes, trying to get her to look at him and offer some explanation for what she had just declared.

            "Genma!" she looked up. "You have enough to answer for, I beg you, do not add to it now!" It had been hard enough to make her decree. She did not have the stomach to explain herself right now. Happosai had pushed her too far, forcing her to see that Ranma needed to decide for himself, but as the head of their clan, she had to balance the outcome in the scales of honor. Fortunately, because of Ranko, she had the slack she needed. As long as her line was continued, the obligation she bore could be passed on. The additional obligation Genma had added was a separate matter and justification for one of her daughters to become a man and fulfill it. She had assumed this would work for Ranma, but as a girl, her son had unwittingly complicated everything. She hesitated to even ask what it would do to a person to be fought over by a man and a woman. Turning to the wizened old master, she spat with barely restrained hatred, "Are you satisfied, old man?"

            Happosai nodded, "It will do. Still too rigid in your thinking, Nodoka, but I suppose this is the best I can expect from you for now."

            "Fine. Now, let my daughter go and leave this place. I am exhausted trying to stay my hand. The very sight of you makes me want to kill you."

            Happosai cackled cheerfully, and had to rub it in. "Very well. Soun! Genma! We're leaving on a training trip! Make it quick before Nodoka goes for her sword." The two men froze in terror. They could not describe how eager they were to set hands on their master in his weakened condition, but Happosai had just stumped them. If they followed their usual plan, they would have to appear to go along with the old man's demands and pander to him until they could kill him. They could look like real men and refuse his command, but lose the opportunity to end his miserable existence. Ah, well, if ever there were two men who were happy to be cowards and appear brave, it was Soun and Genma. They loudly declared the end of their days of bending to his whim, and proceeded to pack him in a box addressed to Ethiopia. 

            "You two are so pathetic," Nabiki drawled as they lugged the box out the door and handed it over to a hastily called freight shipping truck. "You know that, don't you?"

            While the little meeting dissolved into such odd tasks, Ranma, Akane and Ryouga still remained frozen in place, stunned by Nodoka's declaration. Ranma could feel their eyes on her, boring into her, and could not bring herself to look away from where Nodoka was sitting when she dropped the bomb. She stared out the open shoji, over the compound wall and into the deep blue sky, wondering if she had been damned or saved. 


	36. To See the Naked Truth

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Thirty-Six: To See the Naked Truth

Unnoticed through the morning battle and the long period of gathering reinforcements and negotiating with Happosai, the sun had ascended upon its natural arc in its usual, stoic fashion. In a week of unprecedented disruption, this morning had seen such disturbing changes it was almost impossible to believe the world had not stopped on its axis. Ranma did not know if she took comfort in seeing the shadows shift and shorten, heralding the approach of mid day. In the wake of Nodoka's declaration, the witnesses discretely excused themselves from the presence of Ranma, Ryouga and Akane, who remained lost in a shell-shocked silence, unable to look at each other. As Soun and Genma busied themselves with shipping Happosai out of the country, Kasumi had proceeded outside to gather the clothes discarded in, and beside, the koi pond. Ranma was one of the few cursed individuals fortunate enough to be able to wear the same clothes through transformations. No one really understood the slight of hand Genma used to shed and resume wearing his usual dirty gi, but the likes of Shampoo, Mousse and Ryouga always left a sodden heap of clothes they could not resume wearing until they had been dried. 

            It had become so common for them to lose complete outfits in or around the Tendo compound that they usually snatched an outfit Kasumi had washed and stored for them. This had been the case when Mousse was returned to human form by Nodoka's curiosity and a hot kettle of tea. However, since Mousse could never retain his entire arsenal during the shift from human to duck, his discards were significantly more trouble for Kasumi to deal with. Mousse was not unusual in taking Kasumi's laundering service for granted, but after watching Kasumi labor to pick up hundreds of discarded weapons that Mousse deployed in the morning battle, Shampoo took an atypical interest in helping Kasumi in the yard. Her work as a waitress had made Shampoo adept at working around water without getting wet enough to change to her cat form, so she sorted through the odd assortment of objects Kasumi shook out of his damp robes. 

            One object, in particular, caught her attention. A bottle of water. A bottle of very special water. A cruel smile played at her lips as she thought of locking certain male obstacles in their smaller, more vulnerable forms. Pocketing the bottle, while these evil thoughts were pondered, she continued to sort weapons. Because of his curse, Mousse had duplicated his entire arsenal numerous times, so he had probably reequipped himself when he got dressed and the weapons Shampoo was sorting would just go into storage in the Tendo Dojo. It would probably be a while before her unwanted paramour realized he had lost the chisuiiton water flask. 

            By the time she was done with her task, Shampoo had realized that there was only enough water to lock one individual, and had begun the difficult task of trying to decide if Mousse or Ryouga was the greater threat. It took only a second to realize that it was Ryouga who now stood as her greatest rival. While it was true that his involvement was with Ranma, she knew how the council of elders thought. They would look at the situation involving the mirror and conclude that it was Ranko, not Ranma, who had consummated the marriage. The issue was confused enough that it would take a while to reach that conclusion, but as far as Shampoo was concerned, it was a forgone conclusion. The only thing Shampoo could do now to make her claim stronger than Ryouga's was to have sex with the real Ranko before the council deliberated—and of course, Ranko was currently female.

            With a small growl, she gathered the pile of weapons in her arms and delivered them to the storage closet of the dojo. As she put them away, she fumed over the way things had gone. Because of Mousse, Ranko was cured. Her male side completely erased. That severely weakened Shampoo's position. Only the fact that Ranko had been a boy, because of Togenkyo water, exempted her from the law forbidding amazons to deliberately assume a sex changing curse. Shampoo doubted she would have much of an opportunity to bed Ranko between visiting Jusenkyo and their return to the village. If only she had some nanniichaun water now! 

            The heart ache was tearing her up inside. It was the same agony she had suffered the night she had first confronted the mirror split Ranma. What she had believed, after confronting Copy-chan in the bath, was true this time. In fact, it was even worse. Instead of a boy trapped in a girl's body, Ranko was a girl trapped in a girl's body. If Fa Shen's memories were taken into consideration, and they should be, since Ranko had made it known that they were surfacing, she was an amazon girl to boot. Not exactly prime husband material, Shampoo chuckled morosely, but thanks to that original misunderstanding, she had been forced to accept that she loved the person and had long since accepted that person could be as female as herself. She had been forced to understand that a big part of "Ranma's" attraction for her was the fact that he could be a she. In "Ranma" she had the hope of a friend as well as a husband—a sister in arms, as well as a lover. 

            As the situation unfolded and Fa Shen became part of the picture, even as Ranko declared herself a completely independent entity from Ranma, and a girl, the attraction had only grown. Shampoo knew how a reincarnated amazon fit into her native society, especially one who crossed over from male to female. Ranma had been the perfect man for Shampoo from the beginning. Ranko was simply perfect. A woman legally entitled to take a wife, and with everything she had absorbed from Ranma, more than man enough to fulfill Shampoo's hopes, dreams and desires. 

            It hurt a lot more, now that she had confronted them, to see those hopes, dreams and desires shattered by the loss of that male form. Not for the first time, she wished she had not restrained herself in her efforts to seduce the boy. Even though she had invested the time and trouble to use instant nanniichaun on herself, to find out exactly how males ticked and what buttons to push, he had proven immune to her subtle manipulations. As the woman, it was her prerogative to consummate their marriage, and she could be as aggressive as she wanted. The problem was, she wanted him to want her. She wanted him to love her. She enticed and encouraged, she threw herself at him shamelessly, but silently demanded him to make the critical move. She would have been content to wait forever if it had not been for Ryouga. If she had slept with the boy-girl just ONCE, nothing could have threatened their union. If Shampoo was not terrified that the transformation would kill Ranko, Shampoo would grab a packet of instant nyanniichaun and use it right then and there. If Shampoo did not hold back, there was no way any male could resist her. Not even one who had become female in her own mind. 

            "Shampoo want break something!" Shampoo snarled. 

            "What are you so upset about, Sugar?"

            Shampoo spun around at the sound of Ukyo's voice. The girl was paused in the act of entering the dojo, one hand gripping the shoji lightly, the other flipping her long, dark pony-tail off her shoulder. 

            "What not to be upset about?" Shampoo challenged, dismissing her rival as a threat for the moment. Shampoo wondered how serious the okonomiyaki chef was about continuing her pursuit of Ranma. She had flung that challenge mostly to irritate Genma, but in the wake of Nodoka's declaration it would be quite a battle to actually win him. After hearing about what had happened between Ranma and Ryouga, it was unlikely she would even want to. Even discounting the fact that they all the fiancées had some difficulty with transferring their affections from Ranko to Ranma, the one attraction Ranma held for all of them was his fierce masculinity. But, why turn away from the girl you love to pursue a boy who was girl enough to do THAT? 

            "Well," Ukyo smirked, "Akane's staked her claim to Ranma. She probably wasn't thinking, but she challenged Ryouga and Ranma's mom took her seriously. I don't know if you caught the look on Ranko's face when she went all psycho-possessive over Ranma, but I think she just blew her chances with Ranko big time."

            "That so?" Shampoo perked up. One less rival was good news, especially with the addition of male competitors for Ranko's love. Still, if Ukyo thought it was good news, then it was not all good news for the amazon. "What you do? You also engaged to Ranma."

            Ukyo waved that off. "Well, Ranma can't marry both Ryouga and Akane, so it's pretty obvious he can't marry me too. I won't just drop it, but I am sure, one way or the other, I will lose Ranma. It's so tragic," she posed dramatically in grief, holding the back of one hand to her forehead. Shampoo eyed her suspiciously, but Ukyo was not going to point out little details that would come out, which would suggest the perfect way to satisfy her family honor through marriage to Ranko. With the life Ukyo had led, there was sufficient documented evidence for Ukyo to be proven either male or female. A nanniichaun curse would see to it that she was a perfect match for Ranko, whatever she chose to be officially. A good strategy was like a good recipe, she just needed to get all the ingredients right, keep an eye on the temperature as things heated up, and make all the right moves at the right time. 

            "Spatula-Girl plan on lose?" Shampoo glared. 

            "Sometimes it's better to get the consolation prize," Ukyo shrugged. It was more than a hint, but it was not as if the other girl did not know her intentions inside and out. Ukyo already knew she had one incredible advantage over Shampoo. She could get a boy curse. She also had, ironically, spent over half her life living as a boy. Taking her charade one step further was a bit frightening, but for Ranko, she would not hesitate to do it. She saw the anger creeping into Shampoo's eyes and sighed. "Stop it, Shampoo," she snapped sternly, but without malice. "I know you want her too, and yeah, it means we're still rivals, but things are a lot more complicated now that the boys are in on this too."

            Shampoo blinked in surprise. "What you get at?"

            "I think it's kinda obvious, Shampoo. Nodoka's really hung up on honor. If Ryouga wins Ranma, she's going to think of marrying Ranko to Akane, girl or not, to honor the families' pact. If Akane gets Ranma, then Ryouga will go after Ranko, and thanks to your amazon laws, he has a good chance of getting her," Ukyo frowned in frustration. "I'm not even going to go into what Mousse is up to. Ranko's still a fiancée magnet, so the only way to improve the odds for you and me is to work together to make sure no one else gets a shot at her."

            Shampoo considered what Ukyo was proposing very carefully. Thinking aloud, she found herself returning to the thoughts Ukyo had interrupted. "Shampoo could weaken Lost Boy's claim to Ranko if stupid mirror no make fatal for Ranko to transform. Maybe make possible for Ranko defeat stupid Mousse in challenge, too," she muttered. 

            Ukyo scratched her head in thought. "I don't understand. I thought Ranko was freed from the mirror's effects when her curse was cured."

            Shampoo paused. "Shampoo thought, Ranko need have full ki to close self off from mirror. Cure curse just mean no can transform, so no give mirror chance to suck off last ki," she countered. 

            "I thought the reason she still had ki was because it was locked in her curse so the mirror could not get it unless she changed. She was completely paralyzed until Cologne cured her and let that ki free. If the mirror was still able to drain her, wouldn't it be draining her now?" Ukyo braced her hands on her hips. She thought carefully about what Cologne had said about it. The curse had stored up ki like a battery, so Cologne had tried to lock it to keep any of that energy from coming out. Only, she had not locked it, she had cured it. Ranko had been able to start moving after that, and when her ki was boosted by Ranma, she had been able to move much better. Why had the mirror stopped draining her? "There was nowhere for the mirror to send the ki," Ukyo realized.

            "What?"

            "Ranma and Fa Shen had all the ki they needed when they took over the reflections. They each had enough to seal themselves off from the mirror and Ranko, so the mirror didn't have anywhere to send more energy and stopped draining. The curse protected Ranko just long enough for them to break the circuit," Ukyo concluded, feeling proud of herself for figuring it out. 

            "We go check with Great-Grandmother and Doctor. It sound good, but Shampoo want be sure!" the purple-haired girl insisted, dragging Ukyo along as she ran out of the dojo and into the house. If Ukyo was right, Shampoo knew how to make a man out of Ranko. As soon as she could do that, it was well past time her husband made a woman out of Shampoo. 

Shampoo and Ukyo noticed that Ranma, Ryouga and Akane were still frozen in place as they passed the entrance to the Tea Room in search of Cologne and Tofu. Ukyo quickly guessed where they would find Cologne. The chef had attempted to corner Nodoka and bring up the matter of her own engagement while Shampoo was helping Kasumi, and had looked on as Nodoka supervised Genma and Soun carrying out the exile of Happosai. Thus, Ukyo had overheard as Nodoka commanded, and Soun delegated to Cologne, the removal of Happosai's belongings from the Tendo home. Nodoka wanted to ensure the old master would never be welcomed back into the house her children resided in and Cologne was probably the only person who could safely handle the dangerous artifacts certain to be found among his more mundane possessions. Since many had been stolen from her tribe, she had been eager to clear out the room, and had conscripted Mousse to assist her. Doctor Tofu, however, had taken Nodoka aside as soon as Happosai was shipped off. They had gone together to his clinic, Nabiki informed Shampoo and Ukyo, to discuss the gender issues faced by Ranma and Ranko. 

            "Is fine, Great-Grandmother can answer question best."

            "Thanks, Nabiki. Come on, Shampoo."

            Nabiki watched as the rival fiancées entered Happosai's former room and continued down the hall to check on her little sister. Just the fact that Shampoo and Ukyo were up to something together did not bode well for the future, but Nabiki was much more concerned about what Akane would do to Ryouga once she got over the shock of Nodoka's declaration. When it had come up, the idea of Ranma ending up married to Ryouga had been perversely funny, but seeing the boy hug her to his chest and profess his love, and not seeing Ranma even twitch, let alone brain him for it, simply shocked Nabiki to the core. Akane's plan had worked all too well, and once Akane came down from her tower of outrage and disbelief, she would be quick to forget this was her own fault and lash out at Ranma and Ryouga with every ounce of spite she possessed. Nabiki had picked up a yukata before encountering Shampoo and Ukyo and, finding the lover's triangle still rigid with brain lock, draped it over Ryouga's naked back and shoulders when she entered the Tea Room. 

            Pausing beside all three, she waved a hand in front of their eyes and decided none of them were ready to come back to reality any time soon. Glancing outside, she saw Kasumi hanging laundry. The fathers had left right after Nodoka, no doubt headed to a bar to celebrate the banishment of Happosai, so there were only two people left to account for. Nabiki vaguely remembered Fa Shen dragging Ranko upstairs while Nabiki was calling the freight company to send a truck to pick up Happosai. She headed upstairs to the guest room to find out what they were up to. 

            For their part, Fa Shen and Ranko had spent the time since excusing themselves distracting themselves from everything that was going on. Fa Shen had taken one look at Ranko, dressed in an oversized shirt and panties, and insisted on finding her something more appropriate to wear. Fa Shen herself wanted to change out of the pajamas she had fought in, after trading outfits with Ranma. Ranma's wardrobe was eclectic and limited, but she found a collection of matching outfits Ranko, as Ranma, had used as a waitress at the Cat Café. Naturally, when it had been necessary to dress the part, during the Cat Tongue ordeal, Ranma had purchased multiple sets of the same feminine, Chinese silk outfit. Once they had changed, Fa Shen assisting Ranko, they were just grateful that they had something comfortable to wear. Fa Shen had proceeded to primp and polish their appearance, introducing Ranko to some of the feminine arts she was sorely lacking in her upbringing. By the time Nabiki walked in on them, the pair had become so identical that only Ranko's weakness gave her away. 

            "You know, I would think the two of you would be trying to accentuate your differences," Nabiki commented after her first appraising glance. 

            "Oh, hi, Nabiki," Ranko greeted. 

            "Hey, I just thought, after a year of being stuck as Ranma, she might wanna try being like me for a change," Fa Shen grinned. She put a finishing touch on the cosmetics she had been applying to Ranko's face, using the supplies Nodoka had provided the night before for the date, and leaned back to admire her work. Considering the primitive materials she had used in her own time to enhance her natural beauty, Nodoka's simple make up kit was a treasure trove. She turned to study their reflections in the mirror and smiled at her new twin. "Now we look like a respectable pair of amazons!"

            "Speaking of amazons," Nabiki coughed politely. As they turned to regard her, Nabiki continued, "Did either of you plan to let Nodoka know that Ryouga might be Ranma's husband by amazon law?"

            Ranko stiffened instantly, but Fa Shen closed her eyes thoughtfully for a moment before staring wide eyed at Nabiki. Confronted by Nodoka, she had thrown herself into the memories she acquired during her awakening to pass as Ranma. She had not entirely shifted back to her normal way of thinking until Nabiki pointed out what she should have already concluded. "I can't believe I didn't think of that!"

            "Well, before Happosai let the cat out of the bag, we told Nodoka about Ranko and her twin being amazons, and Cologne explained how that effected Ranko and Ranma when she explained what was really going on. Your mom kind of overlooked all of that when she made her declaration, Ranko," Nabiki pointed out. 

            "I don't think this is a good time to bring this up to her," Ranko flinched.

            "I don't know," Nabiki waved her off. "I mean, Nodoka seemed to find the whole amazon thing interesting at first. It's just possible that she might actually respect their laws and customs. Wouldn't it be better to find out now, before you're all dragged before the amazon council?"

            "Gyaaa! From what Cologne said, the only way Ranma can get out of bein' married to Ryouga is if they decide he's really married to me!" Ranko stuck out her tongue. Her disgust was less toward the thought of ending up with Ryouga, and more toward being forced into a relationship period. She was still angry about Mousse's challenge, and the laws that were pushing her into it. The whole idea of her being an amazon was not one she cared to take seriously, but she was not being given any choice. Shaking her head, she argued, "That's not gonna happen any time soon. Mousse won't take us to Jusenkyo until he's fought me, and Ranma would have to get to Jusenkyo before he can, ah, er, heal me."

            Without even mentioning how it worked, the thought of what Ranma and Fa Shen had been willing to do to heal Ranko brought blushes to the girl's faces. Even Nabiki could not help herself. "I still can't believe you two were thinking of doing that," she chuckled, nudging Fa Shen in the ribs. "For one thing, you're practically the same person, but you were both the wrong sex! How could you even THINK of doing that?"

            Fa Shen cleared her throat and blushed a little harder. "Don't take this the wrong way, but, it was a lot easier to think of doing it as a boy than as a girl. I'm not, ah, really that comfortable about letting a boy…" she cut herself off. How did she explain the problems she had with men challenging her from the very onset of puberty? How could she explain how Ranma being a girl would have removed the threat a male partner presented to her. 

            "You mean you wanted to do it as a boy!?" Nabiki and Ranko gaped. 

            "Well, that's a hell of a lot better than doing it WITH a boy!" Fa Shen shouted in instant embarrassment. The way they stared at her did not help her regain her cool. Crossing her arms, she glared at them, "Just look at Ranma! She did it with a boy and now he's practically her husband! And she's really a BOY inside! What do you think it'd do to a real girl like me, if sex is really that good!"

            "Uh…" Ranko's mind balked at trying to answer. 

            "You know, this is the modern world, guys. You don't have to marry someone just because you have sex with them," Nabiki rolled her eyes. Fa Shen settled back, about to point out that even in her tribe sex did not require marriage, but Nabiki cut her off with her next comment. "I suppose you just thought, if you were a guy at the time, it wouldn't really count, Fa Shen?"

            Fa Shen swallowed the argument she had been poised to deliver and thought about the question. Nodding her head, she answered, "I suppose that's part of it. I mean, I could tell that Ranma wasn't exactly scared of doing it, and that it would probably be a lot of fun, but the whole point was that we wanted to help Ranko. If I was still a guy now, I'd be willing to do it for that reason."

            Ranko looked at her oddly. There was something hesitant in how she said that, as if there was something that went unsaid. Curious, and suspicious, she pressed, "Are you sure that's all it was? You just wanted to help me?"

            Fa Shen gazed back at her, unconsciously giving her a look similar to the one she gave Ranma once she got used to the proposition. To her shock, Ranko seemed to recognize the look and swallowed hard. 

            "It's the memories, isn't it?" Ranko demanded. 

            Fa Shen stiffened. "What are you talking about!?"

            "I know that look. Copy-kun and Copy-chan both gave me that look when they were puttin' the moves on me. Even when they were just thinkin' of it. Because of me, you can remember a whole year of tryin' to be a guy, thinkin' like a guy havin' all these girls chasin' after you!" Ranko accused.

            Fa Shen sighed and her shoulders sagged. After a moment she nodded in defeat. "You have no… Actually, I guess you do have an idea. This was Copy-kun's body and… he really, really wanted Copy-chan. He even wanted you, Ranko. His head was full of naughty thoughts. After he got your memories, and became a cured Ranma, he… those feelings changed," Fa Shen confided. She stood and went to the window. Looking out, and speaking over her shoulder, she continued. "As a matter of honor, he was trying to take the engagement with Akane seriously. He wanted to delay getting married, since he wasn't sure how they felt about each other. He didn't know if he loved her because… well, he didn't feel the same about her as he did about you and Ranma."

            Ranko and Nabiki exchanged glances, half wondering if they wanted to hear more, unable to resist listening for it. 

            "It was totally perverted, how much he wanted you. He thought some of it was just Copy-kun, and some of it was feeling cut off from his female half. Because Cologne warned him how dangerous it would be, he never seriously thought about having sex with either of you, but he couldn't stop fantasizing about it. He was afraid of what would happen if anyone suspected, so he hid all these feelings. Could you imagine what Akane would do if she thought her fiancé wanted his girl half more than her?" she challenged. 

            Ranko and Nabiki cringed. 

            "I never suspected," Nabiki mused, in disbelief. 

            "I should have known. I can remember it. It hit me when I took a bath with the other Ranko the next morning. Copy-chan was just as bad, and I had to fight off being attracted to that Ranma. Copy-kun almost got me that first morning, so I knew I had to be careful. If I dropped my guard when I thought I was a guy, I was doomed thinking I was a girl and having her feelings inside me," Ranko admitted. 

            Fa Shen turned to face them, relieved to know that Ranko understood exactly what she was going through. "It would be so easy, and it would be for such a good reason. I'm glad I'm back to normal, but, it's kind of a shame that it happened too soon. It's an itch I can't scratch and I'm afraid it'll drive me to get cursed too," she finally revealed her real fear. She covered her face, "I don't know how to deal with it. I'm turned on by my own body."

            Ranko stared at her. She understood the feeling, but she had kept the impulses under control in her own case. Apparently, her male reflection had really fed the fire to leave Fa Shen in this insane position. "I am really sorry about this, Fa Shen," she blushed, taking responsibility for her projection. 

            Fa Shen forced herself to smile, dropping her hands to show her face, "Hey, it's not so bad. I mean, I didn't really think I could come back from the dead and not have to pay some kind of price. At least I don't have all that testosterone in my system making things even worse."

            Nabiki blinked. "I didn't think anyone knew about testosterone when you were alive," she commented idly.

            "One of the good sides to having Ranko's memories. I can understand the world I am in now and can think in its terms," Fa Shen shrugged. She thought for a moment and grinned, "By the way, Nabiki. She's a whole lot smarter then you ever gave her credit for. Ranma too."

            Nabiki frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

            "Did you ever wonder why Ranma found school so boring?" Fa Shen's grin widened to show all of her brilliant, white teeth. It did not take long for Nabiki to get what she was implying. 

            "You have to be kidding! Ranma's a complete idiot! He's utterly clueless about anything besides martial arts! No offense, Ranko, but it's true," Nabiki declared hotly. Fa Shen and Ranko exchanged looks and then gazed back at Nabiki, smiling innocently. Nabiki sniffed. She was not going to buy it. She knew that Ranma had potential, but he was too single minded and lazy to have the kind of intelligence Fa Shen was implying. Maybe the ancient amazon was smart, but Nabiki refused to believe she had ever underestimated Ranma. How could anyone raised and educated almost entirely by Genma possibly be smart? It was ridiculous. 

            Rather than argue with the pair, who were smirking with absurd self-confidence, Nabiki excused herself to check up on Akane and the love birds once more. As she came down stairs, Kasumi noticed her and informed her that Cologne had returned to the Cat Café with Shampoo and Mousse and would return with lunch for all of them. Nabiki smiled to herself, wondering what treasures they had retrieved from Happosai. It was a shame to let all of Happosai's legacy go like that, but it was definitely safer for everyone in the house to have it gone. Poking her head into the Tea Room, she sighed in exasperation. The three teens were still frozen in place. 

On some level, Akane had been aware of what was going on around her. Like Ranma, she had turned her attention to Nodoka when she made her announcement, and froze staring off into the back yard. With the image of Ryouga possessively hugging Ranma to his chest, and her relaxing back into his grip, seared into her mind, she had no desire to return her gaze to the couple. It was bad enough to know that it was her own fault those two were together, and worse still to remember that she had spoken up to suggest Ranma might want to remain a girl to preserve her relationship with Ryouga. In both cases, she had acted in the interests of a person she wanted to consider her friend, with whom she had not expected to be romantically entangled. Neither the girl she had set up with Ryouga, nor the boy who woke up in her, was not the person she thought she was in love with. Those feelings, she had been positive, were attached to Ranko. Even though she accepted the idea that Ranko was really a girl, even if she had an interest in being male, Akane had accepted her feelings for her and proceeded to ponder how far she would go to be with Ranko. 

            Unfortunately, time to think was a luxury she had not been afforded. Instead of having the day at school to mull over the situation, Nodoka and Happosai had clashed and everything had come completely unhinged. In the mirror trap, watching Ranma panic and fall into despair when her father proposed marrying her to Ryouga, Akane had felt her heart go out to her. If there was anything she understood, after watching what Ranko had gone through, it was that nothing could injure a person like Ranma more than the loss of her identity. Ranko had made it clear how she felt about being a boy and a girl, and it had been easy to see the difference it made to Ranma when she learned of the plan to go back to Jusenkyo. However well she adapted to being a girl, Ranma HAD to be a boy for her own sake. For various reasons, she needed to be a girl too, and being forced to be one or the other was certain to harm her. Unfortunately, that seemed to be what her parents demanded. Ranma had to be a perfect son, and failing that, a perfect daughter. Akane had instantly objected, and argued that Ranma had every right to be who she… he… wanted to be. 

            Even though it diminished her chances with Ranko to suggest that she was better suited to assuming the obligation of Nodoka's daughter, she had pointed it out to encourage Ranma. Even though Ranma reminded her that even as a half man, their fathers would still expect a male Ranma to marry Akane, she supported "him". At that point, after seeing the same pain in Ranma she had seen in Ranko, it had become clear to Akane that Ranma could be just as worthy of her love as Ranko. She had learned that lesson on her date. In a moment of self honesty, she even admitted she would prefer to love the one who was at least a man in his own mind. She just did not have it in her to become the man in the relationship, to take a curse that would let her be a suitable mate for Ranko. Akane doubted she would ever love another girl the way she loved Ranko, and it was not even that she expected Ranko to be a man for her. Akane would be happy to have her just the way she was, uncursed and all. She was just afraid she could not be what Ranko wanted, needed. 

            When Ranma perked up at her suggestion, rallied around her support for his manhood, Akane had allowed herself to believe part of his motivation was to escape from a possible marriage to Ryouga. A willingness to pursue her instead. It had seemed like there was a chance for things to go back to normal, but this time without the fighting and misunderstandings between them. She was prepared to stand by Ranma and argue against Nodoka, to preserve Ranma's manhood. She had been shaken when the "message" from Nodoka to Ranma broke the girl's spirit. Akane had been unable to understand what had happened, and began to worry when Nodoka took Ranma aside to talk to her. She fought to keep herself calm, waiting for them to come inside, so she could find out what Nodoka's plan was. She was ready to step in and champion Ranma in spite of her unexpected submission, but Nodoka had done something completely unexpected.

            Nodoka had revealed P-Chan's real form. In that instant, all rational thought had been blown out of Akane's mind. Taken separately, Ryouga and P-Chan were two of her best friends in the world. In hindsight, she could see the similar qualities that had endeared them to her. They were both loyal and attentive friends, trusted companions, fellow victims of Ranma's insensitive goading and insults. The problem was, P-Chan was her trusted pet and confidant. She told him her secrets, let him sleep in her bed, anguished over his prolonged absences and loved him in an innocent and uncomplicated fashion. For all his good qualities, Ryouga was not entitled to that degree of intimacy with her, so it came as a double blow to learn that he was P-Chan. In one instant, she lost the security blanket that little pig had been for her fragile heart, while at the same time realizing that a friend she trusted with her life had abused her trust and innocence on a scale she could hardly comprehend. Worst of all, she suddenly remembered all the hints Ranma had dropped from the beginning and realized what a complete fool Ryouga had made of her! 

            One harmless splash of hot water, and Akane had suffered the greatest betrayal of her entire life. Without a single thought, she reared up and attacked with every intention of killing the bastard on the spot. Blind rage was not enough to get through four of the best martial artists of her generation, and deadly threats lashed out to strike the abomination she could not reach. She did not even hear Nodoka's soft question to Ryouga as she raved in absolute fury. When Nodoka repeated the question, she heard it, but it did not register until Ryouga embraced Ranma and answered. All of her rage died at the proclamation of love, as Akane realized the full extent of the betrayal. She did not need Ryouga to remind her how she had set herself up, as she shouted her disbelief. One look at Ranma's reaction to the protective embrace had ripped out her heart. A faint, new hope, a mere glimmer of a possibility glimpsed in Ranma, had opened the tiniest chink in her armor, and the sight of Ranma's relief at Ryouga's declaration of love punched through to slay Akane on the spot. 

            All the rage and hatred awakened toward Ryouga turned inward on herself, and the horror of realizing that she could hurt this bad and not just die forced her to try and spit the fatal arrow back at Ryouga. There was a time when Ryouga had prompted her to say she hated him, to unlock the full potential of the shishihokodan. She obliged, not meaning it in the least. This time, when she said she hated him, she wanted the words to consume his soul. After that, all there was was her pain, her confusion, her loss expressed in such weak, stunned words. It was so horrible to realize what a monster Ryouga was, and know that she had betrayed Ranma into his embrace. Without even thinking about it, she asserted her own claim, dropping the gauntlet over Ranma. Nodoka had picked up her challenge and made it official, shocking them all by announcing that Ranma's very identity hinged on who or what she chose: Be a man with Akane, or a woman with Ryouga. 

            Akane realized at once that there was something she had missed. Some reason why Nodoka had declared she could not see Ranma as her daughter unless she married Ryouga. She had been locked up trying to understand this irrational decree, unable to even summon up the exact words Nodoka had used. Her mind had darted around, trying to come to grips with Ryouga's curse, Ranma's hints, the damning question of why he had not told her, but seeing how hard he had tried to keep the pig away from her. It would have been so simple to turn her head and ask. Except, she could not bear to see the person she had decided to love in HIS naked embrace. She could still see them from the corner of her eye, and knew neither of them had moved a hair since Nodoka dropped the bomb. If she so much as glanced in their direction the odd calm brought on by shock would dissolve into a rage that truly frightened her. For the first time in her life, she realized she was capable of murder, and Ranma stood between her and her chosen target. 

            She did not want to be a murderer. She did not know how to control the hate and anger waiting for her to slip out of her trance. She wished her mother was there. She hurt so bad. 

            Balanced on a knife's edge, her mind desperately trying to distract itself from the blood lust howling inside her, she focused on the missing piece, straining for the elusive key to Nodoka's rationale. Unfortunately, she did not realize that she had been protecting herself from that very understanding. Thus, when she finally succeeded in pinning it down, it was really the failure of all her efforts. As clear as a bell, she heard Nodoka's words ring in memory. "To preserve your honor as a girl, as MY daughter, you must marry Ryouga." Akane frowned in confusion. More words, from before that, "… you would HAVE to marry Ryouga after last night." A trembling started as Akane's hands fumbled in her lap. It spread from there to claw up her arms and legs to gnaw at her stomach, as she noticed a faint motion that drew her attention to the couple across from her. Unable to stop herself, her eyes drifted over and Akane realized that she had caught Ranma shifting the something into Ryouga's hand. She focused on the panties clutched in Ryouga's fist. The message from Nodoka, delivered by Nabiki, which had so deeply puzzled Akane, had been a pair of black, silk panties. The very panties "Ranko" had worn for her date. The blinding, enraged hatred that had gnawed on her soul poured through her, doubling and redoubling in intensity as she realized what had happened on that date. Akane was on her feet, lunging for Ryouga, hands clawed to rip his heart out of his chest—even if they had to tear through Ranma to reach it—before she knew what was happening. 


	37. It's More Than Just Sex?

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections  
A. V. Morgan  
  
  
Author's Note: For some reason Fanfiction.Net will no longer accept the same .htm template formatted document I've used since the beginning. Also, there are no decent formatting tricks for .txt documents that the document handler did not strip out or screw up. Please forgive the poor quality of this post, but in the interest of getting the chapter out, I am going with what works.   
  
  
Part Thirty-Seven: It's More Than Just Sex?  
  
  
Even though many would scoff at the idea that Ranma Saotome was an intellectual genius, anyone who had watched him master a new and difficult martial arts technique in record time would concede that the necessary brilliance resided in his keen, analytical mind. The simple fact was, few things really prompted him to think. Following the bomb his mother had dropped on him, the boy in a girl's birthday suit was at an even greater disadvantage than normal as his entire brain seized up. At first, the only thing he comprehended was that the choice he faced, even before Nodoka made it official, hurt. Ranma had realized, even before coming out of the mirror trap, that his heart was torn between his unnatural love for Ryouga-built more on the understanding reached between them at dinner the previous night and the confidence that those feelings were returned in full-and a very difficult and uncertain love for Akane. When she stood up for him and denounced all the arguments for why Ranma had to be a girl, she had revealed that she actually cared for the person cast adrift between genders. There were so few people in Ranma's life who had ever stood up for him that he responded to those people with an unyielding love.   
  
Ranma was a creature of simple, uncomplicated passions. For the way they had reached out to him, Ryouga and Akane had claimed his heart. Unfortunately, that love was as honest and uncomplicated as he was, and was a far cry from the romantic kind of love that existed between lovers. His awakening experience had proven what Cologne had tried to explain to Copy-kun, that sex was not a prerequisite for love. Sex had almost instantly been associated with martial arts in Ranma's mind, as a way of expressing himself physically, and that was what the prodigal son was best at. "Ranko" had made love to Ryouga to express feelings that words were inadequate to express. Direct and desperate, she gave herself to him to say goodbye. It was pure irony that the same act had allowed Ranma to say hello. The experience had been an epiphany to Ranma, the true meaning of friendship demonstrated in laying back naked and vulnerable, penetrated by pleasure so intense he could not even think coherently. What rivalry could survive such a perfect surrender?  
  
Sex with Ryouga had healed their friendship, and yes, it had made them more than friends. In hindsight, the worst possible thing that could happen to the boy Ranma had been, because of the curse, had been the best possible thing that could happen to the girl Ranma had become. Where Ranko had been burdened with Ranma's personality and the resulting aversion to the curse, Ranma first confronted womanhood with total abandon and discovered it gave him an advantage over most men. Because it was such a common taboo that it was wrong for men to embrace each other in love, they were doomed to embrace each other in war. By sacrificing his manhood, Ranma had ended a long, bitter and stupid conflict that could one day have claimed one or both their lives. If not for all the other complications in his life, the female young man would have thought himself in the best of both worlds. Instead, the belief that it would be fatal for Ranma to confront his mother in his present form had prompted his father to restore his manhood, and the desire to be a man once more had caused Ranma to spurn his new lover.   
  
Ryouga had hated him for it immediately, and Ranma could hardly blame him. Ranma could not understand how Ryouga managed to forgive him enough to answer Nodoka's challenge without hesitation-at least once he was focused enough to hear what she was asking. Ranma doubted the lost boy had heard Ranma admit to his mother that he did love Ryouga, so he had feared the boy's response. When Ryouga hugged him and declared his love, Ranma had felt such intense relief he could not hide it. He had melted into that protective embrace without any shame. In fact, it was a guilty pleasure, since Ranma was painfully aware of the shock and rage consuming Akane after seeing Ryouga's secret exposed. It was the worst time and the worst way for Akane to discover that betrayal of friendship. Ranma had no intention of resisting her wrath, and did not expect Ryouga to either. Ranma could not forgive either of them for keeping this secret from Akane. Only the fact that P-Chan had avoided Akane in the mirror trap convinced Ranma that Ryouga was sincere about not using that form to take advantage of Akane any more, but, of course, the damage had long since been done. Ranma was not going to make excuses for his silence, either by pointing out the promise or the fact that Ranko had made it for him. However, Nodoka had pulled the rug out from under Akane's wrath.   
  
Not surprisingly, Ranma had been so shocked and enraged by his mother's declaration that he had forgotten Akane, and everything else, as his mind seized up. First, there was the surprise that some how Happosai had convinced Nodoka that Ranma needed the curse, the ability to be male, in order to remain sane as well as to help heal Ranko. It was good that Nodoka had vowed not to interfere in that before she continued and made it clear that she could only recognize Ranma as a son or a daughter. Not both. This meant that Ranma did not have to worry about that as he focused on the really damning part of Nodoka's statement. As far as she was concerned, Ranma had to be a boy or a girl entirely. This, because if Ranma chose to be a boy, he had no honor as a girl and would be married to Akane, but if he chose to be a girl, he had no honor as a boy and would be married to Ryouga. Ranma loved his mother desperately, but with those words, he had realized he hated her too. It was a no win situation, an uncompromising, unforgiving insult to one of the two people Ranma truly loved.   
  
For a long time, Ranma simply refused to accept it. He was free to assume the nanniichaun curse, to be-what a year of inherited experiences had done to redefine as "normal" for him-more than a man. He could be better than a man and his mother would not accept it. He could only be a man by rejecting Ryouga and trying to hide the shame of what was now his true form from his mother's eyes. Unless Ranma was completely wrong, only Akane raving about how Ranma was "hers" and the need to satisfy the honor of the Saotome and Tendo clans through their marriage compelled Nodoka to even consider recognizing Ranma as her son again. Ranma could only refuse that honor by shaming his male side beyond his mother's ability to recognize him, but if he did honor the arrangement, he shamed his girl side just as bad. It was horrifying, but worse, the implication that there was no way to win struck him as a grave insult. With complete detachment, Ranma had sunk into a sea of anger and resentment over this.   
  
He just could not accept it. For one thing, he was still too much a man in his own mind. True, he was a girl in all other respects, and whatever the circumstances responsible for that, what the curse and Ryouga had done to him had made it possible for him to accept being female. With the opposite curse, and the belief that Ryouga would feel the same about Ranma, male or female, and felt it strongly enough to consider becoming as much a girl, Ranma knew he could live with marrying him. Ryouga was not going to deny Ranma's need to be a man. Akane had already endorsed Ranma's manhood, though she had admitted, when Genma challenged her, that she had also defended his choice to be female when the Togenkyo transformation had been discussed in his absence. The problem was Nodoka's strict beliefs. Yes, it was obvious that Ranma could not be with both Akane and Ryouga, but was it necessary for her to rub it in all their faces? Now that the man-among-men contract was invalidated, did she think it was necessary to find some other way to hang the sword of honor over Ranma's head? It was not as if Ryouga had gotten Ranma pregnant, and it was necessary for them to get married for the sake of the child. At least, that was the risk she had implied when she thought Ranma was "Ranko Tendo" and she was trying to discourage the girl from engaging in unprotected sex.   
  
Ranma frowned inwardly. Maybe that was it. Ranko Tendo was a very different prospect from Ranma Saotome. That was obvious when Nodoka insisted that marrying Ryouga was necessary to protect "her daughter's" honor. Even though it was not Ranma's fault, Nodoka was ashamed of the fact that "she" had sex with Ryouga. Why was she more compassionate and understanding of "Ranko's" feelings than she was of her own child's? As a girl, Ranma was not in the least ashamed of what she had done. As a boy, it did not occur to him to be ashamed until the girl's memories put the act in perspective, and he realized how unnatural and perverse it would seem to a normal person. But, before waking up and embracing the memories, he had been a normal boy, as far as sex and gender went. He experienced sex as a girl before finding out what sex was supposed to be and mean. Without knowing what people thought, he had no reason to think sex was demeaning, and having been a girl at the time, everything he had done was appropriate to his form. As a martial artist, he was a strong believer in "form follows function" so being a girl, you had to have sex like a girl, and if that was the defining difference between male and female, proud, manly Ranma saw no reason to deny that he was a girl.   
  
Ranma's fist tightened, crushing the black silk wad in his hand. 'My hand,' he thought. 'A girl's hand. I am a girl. I've had sex with a boy, and I liked it.' She took a deep breath and relaxed her grip. 'I love him. I don't see anything about that I need to be ashamed of. After all, wasn't I supposed to be a girl to begin with? Shouldn't I be more ashamed of the fact that everyone, including me, tried so hard to make me something I wasn't in the first place?' She smiled faintly. Then she thought of Ranko. Ranko was a lot more of a girl than she was. Ranma, even as the projection of Ranko, had needed Ryouga to make her understand being a girl. If Ranma chose Ryouga, and became Nodoka's daughter, what would happen to Ranko? Would she be forced to marry Akane and live as a boy? A man? If Ranko slept with a guy she liked, would Nodoka force her to marry him or disown her? Was that, any of that, fair to Ranko? Ranma scowled. The idea of Ranko being treated the way she was being treated brought her anger back to the surface. It was not fair. It was not honorable. Or, to be more precise, it was an insult to her honor made to repair a perceived insult to Nodoka's. Happosai was right. Nodoka's mind was too rigid, her sense of honor exaggerated and fragile.   
  
Rubbing her fingers over the soft, slippery silk of her panties, Ranma paused thoughtfully. Nodoka's honor reminded her of a certain boy's ego. Ryouga had done an excellent job of puncturing that boy's ego. Maybe it was time someone did Nodoka the same favor. To begin with, she intended to reject the notion that Ryouga had dishonored her. Ranma had not dishonored herself, in spite of her own confusion. She had done a good job coming to terms with a situation that nothing she had ever experienced as a boy could have prepared her for. She could not take responsibility for the sex, which she refused to regret, but she could take responsibility for the first conscious decision she had made afterwards. She turned her hand over under Ryouga's and pressed the panties into his grasp. She had decided to let him keep his little trophy, hiding the flush of pleasure his demand to keep them had aroused, so it was appropriate to return them to him. That done, she proceeded to seriously ask herself if her mother was justified in judging her by the actions of others. Her consent to having sex had been usurped by "Ranko". Ryouga had done his best to resist her temptation, and eventually crumbled, so he was hardly at fault. He'd remembered to use protection, so even there he had done the honorable thing. Nodoka certainly had no right to impose her little declaration on him!  
  
Further thought was interrupted by a burst of motion at the corner of her eye, and a sharp shrill of danger ringing in her skull. Ranma blinked, reflexes springing her into action, as her cognitive mind refused to let go of its train of thought. Without thinking, Ranma surged forward, her fingers threading through Akane's clawed hands. Unprepared for the murderous strength in Akane's arms, Ranma's arms were spread wide, her wrists bent painfully backwards, as her body was painfully sandwiched between Akane and Ryouga. All three toppled over, with Ryouga pinned on his back, his arms trapped between Akane and Ranma. Akane rested with her nose centimeters from Ranma's, when the red-head blurted out the last thought to cross her mind.   
  
"What if he raped me?" she challenged.   
  
Akane, already primed to kill, did not grasp the argument behind the words, and took them literally. "WHAT!!!? H-he RAPED you!?" she shrieked, rearing back and staring into Ryouga's eyes, over Ranma's head. "You disgusting PIG! How DARE YOU!?"  
  
"Wh-what...?" Ryouga stammered in cold disbelief.   
  
"NO!" Ranma shouted, straining to keep Akane's hands locked in her grip, as the other girl strained to reach for Ryouga's throat. Wrapping her legs around Akane's hips and applying pressure to the other girl's lower spine, she tried to keep her immobilized long enough to listen. "I said 'what if?'. Ryouga tried to say no, but 'Ranko' wouldn't have it. She wanted it, and Ryouga couldn't resist. He was a complete gentleman and used a condom and everything. By the time I woke up, everything felt so good I couldn't even think! The point is, I didn't have a say in it!" she yelled into Akane's face.   
  
Hearing this was not exactly calming Akane down, but the shock and embarrassment did choke off anything she might have said, or yelled, in response. Ryouga had to ask the question for her.   
  
"What are you talking about, Ranma?"  
  
"I'm sayin' 'Why do I hav'ta marry you just because we had sex?' How can it be a stain on my honor when it wasn't even my fault!? It's like, I was asleep when you started. Don't you remember, Akane, there was that guy who slept with a girl at a party after she fell asleep? That's rape, right? Isn't that sort of what happened to me?" Ranma pointed out, bringing up a rumor that circulated when a certain couple stopped coming to school. "So, I'm askin' would Mom want me to marry a guy who raped me?" Ranma was fishing, trying out ideas she had never fully understood. Rape was something guys talked about in relation to sex, sort of the dark side of sex. She knew rape was a crime, and in some countries it was considered as bad, or worse than murder. "Does that sound like a way a girl can keep her honor?" Ranma challenged, when neither of them spoke.  
  
Akane could not speak.   
  
"Ohgod. Ohgodohgodohgod," Ryouga babbled. The way Ranma had put it, it suddenly felt like he HAD raped Ranma. Yes, Ranko had said yes. She had demanded they have sex. Ranma, however, had not even understood what was happening when he woke up. It took a long time after it was over for Ranma to even be able to think, by that time, the memories had flooded his mind, and he had clung to the female personality they came with. Ranma could remember saying yes, but the truth was, she had never been given a choice. "I am so sorry, Ranma. So, so sorry," he twisted, dumping the girls off to the side, and proceeded to run out the open shoji, carelessly closing the yukata around his naked body.   
  
"Ryouga!" Ranma tried to untangle herself from Akane. "Wait!"  
  
Akane, still overwhelmed with anger, stunned by Ranma's words and the weird logic that said she had been raped at the same time they tried to say she had not. Ryouga's retreat, his parting words, made it obvious that he had reached a similar conclusion, but the horror, the shame and guilt, did not belong in a man who had so maliciously betrayed Ranma and Akane. "Damn you, Ryouga! Hurry! Run! Don't EVER come back!" she shouted, trying to keep Ranma from following. Akane wanted to chase the boy, hit him, hurt him, break him into tiny pieces and... she was so glad he was going away. Away from her, away from Ranma. She was grateful that Ranma had intercepted her before she could complete her attack. Grateful that the girl had been too preoccupied to realize that Akane would have torn through her to get her claws into Ryouga. She was grateful that it was easier to hold onto Ranma for all she was worth than give in to the urge to chase Ryouga.   
  
"Let me go, Akane!" Ranma struggled, but this was not a stand up fight, this was a contest of muscle and leverage, and Akane was both bigger and stronger than her, or her longer limbs gave her the leverage to foil Ranma's uncanny strength. "Please, Akane!? He'll get lost!"  
  
Akane ignored the pleading, "Good. That's the best thing he could do right now; get lost."  
  
"No! Akane! Why are you doin' this!?"  
  
"Don't you understand? Don't you know why he left?"  
  
"What are you talking about!?"  
  
"He... he realized that he did," Akane exhaled into Ranma's ear, half hugging the red-head while keeping her arms pinned behind her back, fingers still twined through hers. Ranma was not following. "Ranma... he... he thinks he raped you." And why did that upset him, unless...? Akane scowled. She did not want to see a good side to him at the moment. Ranma had gone stiff in Akane's arms.   
  
"No. No, I'm not going to believe that," Ranma moaned in a dead voice.   
  
"You pointed it out yourself! You said you didn't have a choice! That IS rape, stupid!" Akane shouted, the tide of anger swiftly shifting to sorrow as Ranma became a victim in her mind. Someone who had been betrayed even more deeply than she had by Ryouga.   
  
Ranma found the strength to throw Akane off at that. "NO! Ranma Saotome is NO ONE'S victim! It was an ACCIDENT! Yeah, so I got in the middle of somethin' I didn't understand, but I wasn't hurt! You're sayin' Ryouga tried to hurt me!"  
  
"How can you say you weren't hurt, Ranma?" Akane sat up in disbelief, brushing tears form her cheeks. "Maybe it wasn't just Ryouga, maybe it's the other Ranko's fault too, but can you honestly say you would have wanted this to happen? You were a boy, Ranma! Could you have even thought about having sex with another boy if you had a choice? Don't you see what this has done to you?"  
  
Ranma had been about to sprint out of the room as soon as Akane was off of her, but first she had tried to defend Ryouga, and then Akane had said things she could not ignore. She rose to her feet and approached the other girl, staring down with anger and hurt, "Change hurts, Akane. It makes everything different, and sometimes the pain makes it hard to see if things have been set wrong or right. Before I woke up, I didn't even know what sex was, so I could not have even made a choice. I'm glad I didn't have to chose, because if I'd been given the chance, the decision would probably have been made by someone for me, like always. If I'd made the right decision for a man, I'd have made the wrong decision for me," Ranma declared.   
  
"Are you saying you want to be a girl? That you want Ryouga?"   
  
Ranma looked out over the yard. "I am a girl, Akane. I am a girl and that doesn't make me any less of a man. I want to go find my friend and make sure he's okay. I don't like losing my friends."  
  
"What about me?" Akane asked in a voice growing smaller by the moment. She looked up, waiting to see if Ranma would look at her. "Do you want me?"  
  
Ranma turned and studied her. "Well, that's the problem isn't it?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"I should be asking you the same question," Ranma gave her a sad look and then raced out of the house, across the yard, and bounded over the wall in search of Ryouga. Akane blinked in confusion for a moment, before she understood what Ranma meant. With sudden determination, she jumped to her feet and raced out of the house, out through the genkan and the front gates, then down the streets in search of Ranma and Ryouga.   
  
-------------------------  
  
Kodachi Kuno slipped out from behind a tree in the Tendo yard. She had been in a bad mood since she confronted Akane Tendo the night before. After returning to the park and finding her lackey, Hikaru Gosenkugi laying unconscious at the base of the tree they had hidden in to ambush Akane and Ranma, she had returned home to contemplate the fight. There was no way to deny she had been defeated, since her intention had been to capture her lover and Akane had succeeded in thwarting her. It was a little harder to consider that she had failed because Akane had beaten her in combat. Being hammered over the horizon did not really count as a defeat in Kodachi's mind, since the only real damage had been to her pride. However great her pride, she was well acquainted with the way her brother denied Ranma regular triumphs over him, and did not wish to be considered as delusional as Tatewaki. The only salve to her bruised ego was seeing him return empty handed as well. Neither spoke of their failure before retiring for the night. Neither slept very well either.   
  
Kodachi took a more constructive approach to dealing with her disappointment, going to her lab to cook up some additions to her arsenal to improve her chances of successfully capturing Ranma and the Pig-Tailed-Girl. The work always served to calm her nerves and allow her to think. Thus, she was able to admit that Akane had defeated her in the technical sense. It was a vindication of her long practice of confronting her opponents outside of competition. The strategy itself made it obvious that she did respect the ability of those lower than herself, who made up for their low birth by training their bodies and minds with a desperate devotion beneath one of her natural ability. It had been a long time since she risked facing opposition when something she valued was at stake, and now she saw how her strategy for assured success had failed her. By controlling the situation so that she always won when she wanted to, she had led herself to believe she would always win when she desired. She had forgotten that the competition for Ranma's heart was very different from her Rhythmic Gymnastic Martial Arts. There were no written rules, no judges, and the entire world was the arena of battle.   
  
This meant, her opponents were primed to fight at any time, never dropping their guards and assuming they were safe until the day of the match. Oh no, the girls Kodachi was fighting understood it was a war and they lived it. Her ambush had failed because she never truly held the element of surprise. Expecting Akane to be caught of guard, Kodachi had unwittingly relaxed her own and was surprised when Akane went all out, saving nothing for some future contest. Well, Kodachi understood the rules of the game now, and she had armed herself appropriately. Assured of success in her next venture, she slipped easily to sleep. When she awoke, there was a message from Gosunkugi waiting for her. Before letting him go home the night before, she instructed him to watch the school and report on the actions of her various targets. When the boy's message revealed that none of them had come to school, including the mannish Ukyo and the mercenary Nabiki, she knew where to seek out her prey.   
  
With the time necessary to bathe, dress and arm herself, Kodachi estimated she would arrive at the Tendo compound just before lunch time. When she arrived, she had spotted two of her enemies sitting in the Tea Room apparently deep in thought. She had concealed herself, settling in to observe as the others assembled for the midday meal, gathering intelligence before planning her eventual attack. From the way the boy, Ryouga, was holding the Pig-Tailed-Girl, it was obvious that her brother had been rather soundly defeated in the war for her heart. It had pleased Kodachi as well, since her straying affections would certainly diminish her chances with Ranma-Sama. It had pleased her far more that Akane sat alone. In spite of her date with him, the Tendo girl had apparently not succeeded in her coarse efforts to seduce him. No doubt the girl had repulsed him with her cooking or driven him away with her abuse once more. When Akane had suddenly attacked the red haired girl, Kodachi had been rather surprised. Then, when Akane shrieked in disbelief and accusation, Kodachi had almost fallen out from behind the tree!  
  
She could hardly believe it, but Akane had clearly accused the boy of raping the red-haired girl. Quite obviously, there had been much more going on than Kodachi observed, while the trio sat motionlessly. In retrospect, Akane had been trying to get through the girl who called herself Ranma to attack the boy, and "Ranma" was trying to defend him. Even after the boy fled, and the red-haired girl chased after him moments later, Kodachi was asking herself what kind of girl defended the boy that raped her! Only when Akane fled from sight did Kodachi emerge from hiding.   
  
"How peculiar," she commented, sneaking towards the house. She was a girl, and she had felt instant sympathy for her former rival at the word "rape". It was the only part of the exchange she had heard clearly. The aura of rage that had enshrouded Akane attested to her depth of feeling and conviction in attacking, so there was no question that Akane believed her own accusation. Maybe the other girl defended the boy and protected him in the interests of keeping the matter a secret. Given the general indifference of Japanese authorities to the crime of rape, it certainly was more to her disadvantage to reveal the truth. Accusing the boy would just stain her honor, while he would most likely never face prosecution or imprisonment. The best she could hope for was for her men folk to track him down and beat him to death, if she could not do it herself. Of course, that was a crime the authorities would not ignore, and it would not repair her honor. It was more likely, if the crime had not been brutal, if it had been just date rape, for the families in question to settle the matter with a rushed wedding.   
  
"Perhaps I showed up after the 'engagement'?" Kodachi slipped into the house on silent feet. She was quite unsettled by the overheard accusation, and the actions that made it seem more believable. Only the guilty run, she reminded herself. No honorable man would tolerate an accusation like that, and the last thing he would do was run from it. Kodachi snarled. Akane was a rival, so Kodachi had made the effort to learn about the girl. Kodachi had known of the girl's reputation as a champion of the weak even before their first confrontation. Akane was no doubt determined to punish the boy, despite whatever arrangement "Ranma's" family had made. An ill feeling was forming in Kodachi's gut, as she felt herself believing in the crime. For a long time, she had dreamed of putting the red-headed rival in her place, savoring the shame she would endure when Kodachi stood victorious over her with Ranma-Sama on her arm. But rape was too much. An insult, a horror Kodachi would never wish on her enemies. She choked with unwanted sympathy for her rival, even as she noted that the shame would certainly end the girl's hopes with Ranma-Sama.   
  
Her own plans for revenge had to wait until she confirmed the accusation, she realized. Thus, she pressed into the house, seeking the person in whose ears all dirty secrets eventually spilled, Nabiki Tendo. It was hardly surprising that she was standing just outside the door to the Tea Room, positioned to listen to those who had raced out of the house, and the shock on her face told it's own story. Nabiki stared at Kodachi for a moment, before blinking and focusing on her face.   
  
"How long have you been here?" Nabiki instantly demanded.   
  
"Long enough to hear the foulest accusation," Kodachi answered grimly.   
  
"It would be best if you forgot you heard that," Nabiki warned.   
  
Kodachi stared at the mercenary girl. "I believe it is best to clarify some things before making any promises. Before you speak, I do not find this a matter over which money should change hands. Simply tell me, is there any truth to the accusation? Am I correct in assuming that the matter is to be covered up by an engagement between my rival and that... that... despicable boy?"  
  
Nabiki, who had heard the entire exchange quite clearly, having been drawn by the first sound of movement from where she had been in the kitchen, paused in thought. She might have simply refused to speak, no matter how dangerous Kodachi could be. However, her declaration that she would neither buy, nor did she condone the selling of, this kind of information, it seemed possible that the deranged girl did understand the need for discretion. Hardening her gaze, knowing that Kodachi already overheard the most dangerous part of the exchange, she spelled out, very carefully, "There is reasonable suspicion that Ryouga did not have Ranma's full consent to engage in sex during their date. To my knowledge, she does not bear him any resentment, and they claim to be in love. However, her mother did insist she must marry him to retain her honor. For other reasons, Akane feels Ryouga has betrayed her trust, and that this arrangement could threaten her own engagement. I am sure she wants to beat the hell out of him right now, but that would only make things worse for everyone concerned."  
  
"This will not please my brother," Kodachi commented, faintly relieved by the implication that the "rape" was more technical than literal.   
  
"Kodachi, you don't want to repeat this, believe me," Nabiki warned.   
  
"As a woman, you should not think that I would seek to take advantage of this," Kodachi sneered disdainfully, insulted by Nabiki's assumption and unvoiced threat. "However, I believe it would be best for my brother to learn the simple fact of this conquest from me. It is sure enough he would assume rape of any man who managed to seduce the object of his obsession. If he is the first to scream it out loud, certainly no one else will listen thenceforth."  
  
"And then Kuno'll spend the rest of his life trying to kill Ryouga and rescue his 'Pig-Tailed-Girl' from his clutches," an angry, familiar voice intruded. "Forget it, Kodachi. Until the wedding itself happens, and there's still a chance it won't, no one outside the family is going to know about the engagement."  
  
Kodachi looked over Nabiki's shoulder to see Fa Shen and Ukyo marching toward them from the stairs at the end of the hall. Kodachi blinked, surprised to see the red-haired girl had returned home, changed into appropriate feminine clothing and let her hair free of it's pig-tail. That was all she needed to see, to believe that the girl had finally given up on her Ranma. "You look nice like that," Kodachi smiled. "It's about time you stopped pretending to be my beloved Ranma-Sama."   
  
Fa Shen growled, clenching her fists in annoyance as the gymnast tried to change the subject. "Did you hear me, Kodachi!? I said, you aren't going to tell anyone about this!"  
  
Kodachi sneered, "Even though we were rivals, what has happened to you strikes pity into my heart. I was actually trying to protect your reputation, you ignorant little slut! I know the ways of gossip in and out, for I have grown up attending girl's schools. You should trust me when I say, the truth from my brother's mouth is the best kept secret in Nerima."   
  
"It's not a bad idea," Nabiki tried to interject, but Fa Shen was simply unequipped to trust Kodachi in the slightest. Seeing the amazon smirk and tense, while Ukyo took a step back and unharnessed her giant spatula, Nabiki dodged into the kitchen to get out of the way. "No one ever appreciates free advice," she complained, as Fa Shen rocketed down the corridor, foot extended in a kick.   
  
Kodachi sighed, back-peddling and producing one of her new weapons. Naturally, it looked like one of her usual paralysis bombs, and the effects would include partial paralysis. The big difference was obvious as she chucked it right in to Fa Shen's face when she was too close to effectively dodge it. As expected, Fa Shen took a deep breath and held it, before the bomb hit her and exploded, but instead of a cloud of gas, she was doused in a body drenching fluid, the paralytic/hallucinogenic drug almost instantly soaking into her bloodstream through her skin. "I can see I am not welcome here anymore," Kodachi smiled, as the girl stumbled and collapsed to the floor. As she turned on her heel and fled, Ukyo chased after her, making note to be VERY careful of anything Kodachi threw at her.   
  
"D-dammit!" Fa Shen mumbled, straining to pick herself up.   
  
"Are you okay?" Nabiki squatted down, not sure if it was safe to touch the damp girl. Fa Shen struggled to her feet, blinking hard and shaking her head. Nabiki sighed in relief to see her moving, but decided not to touch her when she saw how weak and disoriented Fa Shen looked. "Kodachi's crazy, and uses drugs, but she's not stupid enough to try anything lethal. At least not in front of witnesses. If you can make up upstairs, you might want to sleep off whatever she hit you with."  
  
"Sure. Great. Good thing too," Fa Shen mumbled, supporting herself on the wall and heading back toward the stairs. "Since she used drugs, it doesn't count as a defeat."  
  
"What?" Nabiki's eyes widened.   
  
"I hate giving the Kiss of Death," Fa Shen explained.   
  
Nabiki made a quick note to spread the word, high and wide, not to attack any of the triplets. Thanks to Fa Shen, Ranma and Ranko were bound by amazon law, and Nabiki did not want to find out if they were going to take those laws seriously. Things just were not getting any better.   
  
-------------------------  
  
When Akane started screaming at Ryouga downstairs, Fa Shen and Ukyo had traded a look before springing to their feet. No one in the house could fail to hear her accuse Ryouga of raping Ranma. Obviously, she had just figured out what the two had done on their date, and instantly assumed the worst. Though the two girls acted in haste, they did not move fast enough to keep Ranko from grabbing hold of them and clinging as they raced from the room. This was the first time that Fa Shen and Ukyo realized that, while Ranko's spirit was weak, her body was still strong. She told her hands to hold on, and they obeyed that command to the fullest. As with most of her impulsive moves, it left her without the energy to send further commands, which she tried to explain as Fa Shen and Ukyo tried to break her death grip and leave the injured girl upstairs in relative safety. Fa Shen was surprised to note that pressure points did not work, since they manipulated the underlying ki of the body, and everything Ranko had to spare was locked up in the muscles maintaining her grip. It did not take long for the ki to drain out of her arms, since it was needed elsewhere, and her fingers relaxed on their own. With that, the girls were able to make their delayed exit.   
  
Ranko had been deposited on her futon, carefully positioned sitting upright, grumbling at herself in irritation. If she just took it slow, she could control herself pretty good now. She could stand and walk even, as long as she took her time. She had more than enough control to keep her balance, and that was the hardest part of walking. With just a little support, she could move about the house freely. It was trying to bound about in her normal fashion that locked her up and paralyzed her until her ki settled back in her center.   
  
"This really sucks!" she griped.   
  
She closed her eyes and meditated, trying to will herself to regenerate ki at a faster rate. The frustration she felt quickly derailed her focus, and she found herself hoping that Ranma and Ryouga decided to indulge themselves again soon... and often. She was blushing and chewing herself out for thinking such a selfish thing, and trying to convince herself she was not actually jealous of Ranma, when Fa Shen stumbled to a halt at the door.   
  
"What happened to you? You look as bad as me!"  
  
"Kodachi," Fa Shen moaned, slipping into the room, cautiously, a few slow, carefully balanced steps enabling her to cross the open space until she could collapse safely onto the futon beside Ranko. "She doped me with one of her ball bombs. Ukyo's chasin' her off."  
  
Ranko examined her, noticing the damp blouse. "Not her usual gas attack, huh? What'd she hit you with?"  
  
"A mild paralytic, a hallucinogenic and no doubt an erotic stimulant," Fa Shen tabulated with a drunken smirk.   
  
"How do you know that?" Ranko wondered, faintly impressed.   
  
"Well, mostly experience. Ergot tried everything on me at least twice. I'm just glad that, well, a fate worse than death awaits a man who takes an amazon warrior in an, ah, 'unsportsman like' way," she grimaced. Seeing Ranko stare at her in faint incomprehension, Fa Shen decided to short cut her memory search. "The Kiss of Marriage is only given to a victor in hand to hand or armed combat. Drugs aren't exactly forbidden, nor are poisons, but they have to be used openly. Using them to prevent or end combat, especially by surprise, is considered disengagement, withdrawal from combat. So, you use drugs, you can't claim victory. If a man 'took' his bride that way, she's free to kill him," Fa Shen pointed out. With a more vicious grin, she added, "She's encouraged to take as long as she pleases."  
  
Ranko shuddered slightly. "So, ah, you probably didn't much like Akane screaming that Ryouga raped Ranma," she guessed.   
  
"It's not good for a man's health to suggest an amazon's been raped where other amazons might hear. He could find himself missing a lot of important bits before he could convince anyone that he was innocent," Fa Shen sighed. "See, the only thing we could imagine that would keep the girl he wronged from taking her own revenge is if he did something so terrible to her she was unable to face him."  
  
Ranko blanched. The only fear she could compare that to was her fear of cats. She did not want to think what a man would have to do to inspire that kind of mindless panic. She was about to try and change the subject when she noticed that Fa Shen was on her hands and knees, facing her from quickly diminishing centimeters away. "Fa Shen? What are you... mmmmph!" she was cut off as Fa Shen's mouth closed on her own. With widening eyes, she realized that Fa Shen had not been joking about the aphrodisiac effects of Kodachi's drugs. The pressure of the kiss quickly overcame Ranko's precarious balance and she tipped over backwards with a faint squawk as their mouths parted. "Waaah! F-Fa Shen! Wai..."  
  
Fa Shen simply kept crawling forward, her hands and knees sliding up the futon on either side of Ranko as she leaned forward to recapture her mouth. Ranko struggled limply, feverishly reminding herself if she did anything too abruptly, she would be paralyzed entirely before this amorous assault. She braced her hands against Fa Shen's shoulders and slowly tried to push her off, but she almost lost control when the other girl's hand slipped inside her pants, and the urge to throw her off with all her strength hit. Somehow, she ignored the impulse, and continued applying gradual pressure, building up the strength. It helped that after the initial shock, the probing hand and tongue provoked no particular response.   
  
It took Fa Shen a moment longer, straining against the mounting resistance of the girl under her, to notice she was getting no response to the kiss and no signs of arousal anywhere else. With a frown, she pulled back and looked into the other girl's eyes, surprised to see the alarm there. "What's wrong?" she asked, shaken out of her erotic mood.   
  
"What's wrong!? Get offa me! Do you even realize what you're doin'?"  
  
Fa Shen blinked and sat back on Ranko's thighs. She reached out and pinched her nipple, tweaking it expertly and stroking her other hand between her legs in a way she KNEW should get a response. Ranko flushed and complained about being pinched and 'tickled' but fell silent as she noticed the perplexed look on Fa Shen's face. Ranko lay back for a moment, straining her patience as the girl tried to get a rise out of her. Then it struck her, Fa Shen was really trying. She was familiar enough with her own body to know it should have been doing something, but sure enough, it was not.   
  
"Uh, I think somethin's wrong with me," Ranko finally commented.   
  
Fa Shen stared at her, ceasing her movements. Through the haze of drugs, she struggled to figure out why her attentions were having no effect on Ranko. It was like her whole body was numb, but if she could not feel, she would not have complained about the tickling. Then it hit her, Ranko was not feeling any pleasure. Sensation, but no thrill, nothing erotic. She blinked. "Oh, I'm such an idiot!" she almost yelled. "If sex generates ki, you can't have sex without it. You have to have ki to spare."  
  
"Oh, I suppose that makes sense," Ranko made to sit up. She paused and frowned, "Wait, I do have ki. How much ki do you have to have for sex?"  
  
Fa Shen smiled at her and purred, "Do you want to find out?"  
  
Ranko gulped and glared, "Down, girl! I was just thinkin'... maybe there's somethin' else. I mean, I'm so drained that I'm not getting worked up, but if I put my mind to it, I can do things at full strength. If I go slow, I have full control. I think, if I worked at it, I could get aroused, and that would make it possible to have sex, right?" Fa Shen nodded eagerly, liking where this was going. "Stop drooling, I'm still just thinkin' here! What I'm wondering is, it takes some energy to get aroused, but, once I'm having sex, I might be able to generate new ki. I might be able to regenerate ki on my own, er, well, with just me and uh..."  
  
"Uh huh! Go on!" Fa Shen beamed.   
  
"Well, I assume there's have to be a boy, and..." Ranko did not want to finish. Rather than continue this discussion, since Fa Shen was in rather the wrong frame of mind for it, she carefully straightened her clothes. "I guess I need to give this more thought. Like, after lunch," Ranko suggested hopefully. That was one thing she still had an appetite for, and if she was lucky someone would be up soon to bring her down to eat. "So, ah, if you don't mind letting me up..."  
  
Fa Shen sighed. Rolling off of Ranko, she tried to pull her head together. Through the haze of drugs, she was conscious of what she had been doing, and hated it. The attraction was a legacy of her awakening, and the drugs weakened her to the point where she was acting on it. There was no question she was worked up, and eager, but if Ranko could not enjoy it, if she did not want it too, it was not worth indulging in. "I'm sorry, Ranko. I couldn't stop myself," she apologized, looking away.   
  
Ranko sighed, "I know how you feel. We're going to have to do something about this, but... not like this, okay?"  
  
"That's fair," Fa Shen breathed. "Could you... can you go, please?"  
  
"Sure. Sorry..." Ranko got on her hands and knees and crawled out of the room. The whole time, Fa Shen held herself tight and tried not to look at her. Ranko slid the shoji closed after she passed through the door, and made it to the top of the stairs before Kasumi appeared at the bottom.   
  
"Oh, Ranko, wait, let me help you," she rushed up and offered the girl her arm. Ranko took it thankfully and asked if lunch was ready. "Cologne just called and said they were headed over with food. They'll be here in a little while."  
  
"Good, I am starved!" Ranko smiled and Kasumi smiled back. 


	38. What Sex Changes?

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Thirty-Eight: What Sex Changes?

Shortly after Ranko arrived downstairs, Cologne, Shampoo and Mousse arrived with enough food to feed an army. While the Cat Café traded on the local fame of its ramen, the menu also included a wide range of Chinese entrees to appeal to all tastes. Sadly, despite the volume and variety of this repast, Ranma and Genma were not present to enjoy it and Ranko was forced to eat slowly by her condition. In addition to this handicap, Ranko was further distracted by the hungry look she was receiving from Shampoo from the moment she arrived. With hairs rising on her neck, Ranko knew the girl was up to something, and she hid it poorly with enthusiastic chatter. Thankfully, Nabiki fielded the amazon's questions about the whereabouts of Ranma, Ryouga, Akane and Ukyo. She also explained that Fa Shen was recovering from exposure to drugs Kodachi had used during her recent visit. It was at this point that people noticed that Ranko had ceased eating in favor of staring at the pretty patterns dancing in the wood grain of the table. 

            "Ranko? Hey, are you okay?" Nabiki prodded.

            "Huh? Oh, sure, I'm just fine," Ranko looked up, a silly grin plastered on her face. Nabiki stared at her with narrowing eyes, resisting the urge to weave drunkenly in imitation of the younger girl. 

            "By any chance did you touch Fa Shen when she went upstairs?"

            "Oooohhh yeeeaaaaah!" Ranko giggled, unconsciously rubbing her lips and squirming. Oddly, she could almost feel the kissing and caressing she had endured when Fa Shen pinned her to the futon. After her earlier lack of response, she was savoring the mild arousal that had crept up on her. "You could definitely say that!"

            Nabiki sighed. "Great. Looks like some of the drugs rubbed off on you. In your condition, it probably didn't take much for them to effect you," Nabiki suggested, rising from the table with exaggerated sufferance. "Excuse me, folks, while I put Miss Trippy here to bed," she excused them, coming around to pull Ranko to her feet. Ignoring the smug look from Shampoo, Nabiki shouldered most of Ranko's weight and escorted her out of the room. Nabiki was quick to note that her passenger was moving even more stiffly and lazily than before. She quickly probed to find out what the effects of the drugs were, and when Ranko explained what Fa Shen had said—and done—she quickly agreed that it was best to stick the girl in a different room. Nabiki dragged Ranko past the guest bedroom and into the middle daughter's own room. After tucking her into the bed, Nabiki made silent prayer that the drug would not transfer again now that the fluid carrying it had dried and evaporated. Just to be safe, she made a mental note to have the bed clothes changed before she went to sleep that night. As an extra precaution, she locked the door to her room before returning down stairs. She and Kasumi had a key, and Ranko would be able to unlock it from inside if she needed to. 

            Shortly after Nabiki rejoined the others at the table, Soun and Genma arrived home and settled down to eat. As if she possessed a special sense to detect when her father approached food, Ranma came running into the house from the yard, hugging a familiar black piglet to her chest. It was almost eerie how she managed to whisk the large dish Genma heaped with food right out of his hands before he could take a bite.

            "Thanks, Pop!" she grinned, shoveling food into her mouth as the last word came out. The plate was half empty by the time Akane stumbled in from the front door, chest heaving mightily as she gasped for air. 

            "Ran… ma…!" she tried to growl while panting. 

            Ranma slapped her chopsticks on the table and glared at the girl. "I said we'll talk about it later!" She leveled a steely eye on the other girl; a meaningful look that made Nabiki ache to know what words had passed between them during their search for Ryouga. 

            "I see you found him," Nabiki commented. 

            "Can you believe the idiot tried to jump off a bridge and drown himself in the canal!?" Akane snapped, glaring at the pig. 

            Ranma snorted, "Says what you know, klutz! He was just standin' there thinkin' when you stomped up! If somebody yelled at me like that all of a sudden, I'da jumped too!" The pig snorted faintly in agreement. 

            "I take it none of you thought to bring back the yukata?" Nabiki coughed. As they turned to her, she pulled out her notebook and made a note to bill Ryouga for the lost article of clothing. "You'd think you'd all realize by now that these things cost money…" she clucked, shaking her head. 

            P-Chan hung his head in dismay. It was bad enough that he'd gotten lost so quickly and ended up doubling back towards the dojo, setting himself up to be caught. Then, while he was distracted, staring at the sky and moaning at the unfairness of it all, Akane spooked him into the water; his transformation making it impossible for him to speak or escape. Ranma had snatched him out of the water, and proceeded to crush the life out of him. For a moment, he thought she was trying to kill him. Then she stopped hugging him to turn him around to face her while she yelled at him for running away from her like that. When Akane tried to snag him out of Ranma's grip, Ranma darted away and started running back to the dojo, with Akane shouting at both of them as she took chase. Ryouga could not help but wonder what Ranma had said to her to get Akane to go on about how much she wanted Ranma, and even make her promise to listen to her and Ryouga if they wanted to explain themselves. That had been two kinds of agony, since the old familiar jealousy over Akane was crossed with a new jealousy over Ranma. 

            It was ridiculous! Ryouga had given up on Akane ever caring for him, but it seemed he still cared for her. How pathetic was that? But, he had felt a stab to his heart every time she repeated her desire for Ranma, and the blade twisted deeper as the same words roused fears of losing Ranma to her. In a bitter gloom, he wondered if this was just how she had decided to take revenge on him. Spurning him while at the same time coming between him and the one who had returned his love. It did not help that Ranma refused to talk to her, refused to talk about the "rape" until "later". Ryouga had hardly had time to think about the consequences of his actions, what they meant for Ranma, but it was sheer torture to be in his cursed form unable to do anything BUT think. He did not look forward to the confrontations ahead, especially the ones he could expect from Akane, and now Nabiki. 

            Before Ranma and Akane could resume arguing, Shampoo cleared her throat for attention. "Shampoo have good good news!" she beamed at Ranma, from across the table. When everyone shut up and looked at her, she reached inside her blouse and smiled, "When Shampoo go home, get special present for Ranma and Fa Shen!" She then pulled out a handful of Instant Nanniichaun packets and presented them to Ranma. "Now, Ranma and Fa Shen can use, have sex and cure Ranko!" she cheered. When Ranma snatched the packets greedily from her hand, the amazon bounced up and announced over her shoulder, as she ran for the stairs, "Shampoo go tell Fa Shen good good news! You wait here!"

            Everyone sat there with their mouths hanging open in shock. 

            Ranma stared at the packets in her hand almost reverently. It was a far cry from a permanent solution, and it made her burn to the roots of her hair that Shampoo had been so blunt in phrasing what it allowed, but it was a welcome twist. A glorious taste of manhood waited just a splash away, and Ranko could be healed now, instead of after a long, arduous journey to Jusenkyo. Mousse also stared intently at the packets, trying to decide if it was worse to try and snatch them away, and get slaughtered by the angry mob that would provoke, or accept the fact that Ranko would be ready to face his challenge in a matter of days, instead of weeks. Before anyone could speak, Shampoo walked back into the room frowning. 

            "Aiyaa. Shampoo check all upstairs. Look like Fa Shen take off. Is only Ranko upstairs," she declared. She strained to contain her glee at this good luck. The hardest part of her plan had been finding a way to arrange for privacy, and the perfect excuse had dropped into her lap!

            Nabiki turned a surprised look at the purple haired girl, noticing the wheels turning in her not-so-lighter-than-air head. She carefully composed her features, deliberately not asking the question that was obvious to her, waiting to see what came next.

            "Maybe best everyone go look for her, yes?"

            "Didn't you say that Fa Shen was drugged by Kodachi?" Cologne turned to ask Nabiki. The middle Tendo daughter nodded. "Well, I would say Shampoo is right. She is probably in no condition to be wandering the streets. Quickly, everyone!" Cologne hopped up onto her staff and organized everyone into search parties. Ranma rushed into the furo with P-Chan and returned with a slightly damp and quickly dressed Ryouga. It took a little arm twisting to motivate the two adult males to rouse themselves and join the search, which had the unexpected effect of encouraging even Kasumi to help out, explaining that she was the most familiar with the markets in the area. In short order, the house was emptied as people took off to scour the ward. Nabiki was the last to "leave" remembering at the last minute something she "needed" from the house. She raced quickly upstairs and confirmed that both Ranko and Fa Shen were still sleeping in separate rooms. Since Shampoo had been one of the first to leave, she was in no position to notice the canny mercenary had slipped into the house. Not intending to confront her, Nabiki found a place to hide and waited. 

            It did not take long for Shampoo to return to the house and sneak upstairs with a towel and a bucket of water. Once the girl had slipped into the guest room where Fa Shen was sleeping, and closed the screen, Nabiki crept out of hiding and spied on the pair through a tiny hole in the shoji. She watched as Shampoo opened a paper packet and poured the contents into the bucket of water, and smirked to herself. She was not at all surprised when Shampoo rolled Fa Shen off the futon and undressed her before carefully poured the water over her naked flesh, and toweled the resulting male form dry. Nabiki knew exactly what the purple haired girl was up to, and could hardly keep from laughing over the fact that Shampoo had no idea how her plan had gone awry. Considering what Ranko had told her about the drug's effects, she doubted Fa Shen would be in the mood to kill Shampoo for this little stunt—at least not immediately. Nabiki retreated to her room and activated the surveillance cameras she had rigged in the guest room to capture the occasional indiscretions the former cursed boy indulged in on occasion. The theft of the bathing tape she made shortly after Ranma arrived had taught her to keep future blackmail material much better hidden, and this would make a fabulous addition. She hesitated only a moment to wonder if this was fair to Fa Shen, but considering that Ranma had already bedded Ryouga, and they planned to work together to heal Ranko, she decided the experience would be good for her. 

            As the picture came up on her monitor, Shampoo was putting an empty bottle away and finishing the process of toweling the boy off. Nabiki made a note to find out later what exotic love potion the girl had just used, and settled down to watch the show. Ranko, laid out in the bed nearby, snored gently in oblivion, unlikely to wake if the house blew up around her. Depending on what happened next, there was a chance that theory might be tested. Quickly calculating the odds, Nabiki got up to make a few calls to her factors. Satisfied that the search parties would now be on a long, wild goose chase, Nabiki returned silently to her room with the remainder of her meal and focused on the screen.

The most logical place to begin a search for Fa Shen was Dr. Tofu's clinic. It was the only place in Nerima Fa Shen was familiar with and a reasonable place to go if one happened to be concerned about her health. Unfortunately, Kasumi had suggested it first, offering to stop at the clinic on her way out to the market. Akane and Ranma had instantly jumped up an insisted on checking it out themselves, claiming they also needed to speak to the doctor. Naturally, Genma and Soun, casting brief glares at Ryouga, agreed that the two had to go together. They also insisted that Ryouga accompany Kasumi for protection, in case Fa Shen was dangerous in her present condition. With the slim hope of uniting the families offered by Nodoka's declaration, the fathers had instantly united in a conspiracy to undermine Ryouga and support Akane in the battle for Ranma's heart. Ranma saw through this instantly, but before she could say anything, Ryouga surprised her by cheerfully agreeing to accompany Kasumi. He knew he could not search on his own and hope to return to the dojo any time the same week. More importantly, he was still choked with shame over his "betrayals" of Ranma and Akane, and simply dreaded confronting either of them at the moment. It was enough to make him suppress his fear of what could happen if the two were alone together. Besides, if it was possible for Akane to steal Ranma from him with one conversation, it was best to find that out now, rather than a month down the road.

            So, Akane and Ranma found themselves walking the familiar route to the clinic together. As they walked, they glanced occasionally in each other's direction, each being careful about not letting the other notice her interest. Nagging questions about the other's behavior occupied their minds, as the silence stretched between them. It was no mystery for either of them how the engagement continued to entangle them, but it went without saying that they both knew their present feelings about it ought to be attributed to Ranko. There was a question in that, and Ranma could not ignore it.

            "Why me? Why not her?" Ranma finally broke the silence. 

            Akane stopped and turned to look at her. Her confusion was obvious.

            Ranma frowned and stopped as well. Without looking at Akane, she elaborated. "I didn't think it really meant anything when you challenged Ryouga. I mean, we've both… damn, the memories… I keep thinkin' that was me." Ranma took a deep breath while she decided how to deal with Ranko's memories. "It's sort of a matter of honor, defending the engagement. Even if we don't want it. So, I suppose it was just habit to say that 'I belong to you' when you were angry. But," she waved Akane off, as she tried to interrupt. "It's not the same thing, though, when you asked me if I wanted you."

            Akane looked down and kicked a rock, holding her breath. 

            "Do you know, if it wasn't for Ryouga, I woulda automatically said no? Do you know how much it scares me that I wasn't, like, all 'Who'd want a stupid tomboy like you!?'?" Ranma flicked her eyes over to Akane. Turning her back, she walked over to the chain link fence and stared down into the canal before she continued. "Do you wanna know how much it hurt to tell Ryouga that I wasn't the girl he loved? To tell her she died when I woke up?"

            Akane jerked in surprise, "What? What are you talking about!?"

            Ranma scowled, as the question distracted her. She shot a narrow look at Akane, who sheepishly resumed studying the ground. In an effort to clarify her thoughts, she observed, "I'm really good at usin' words to mess with people's heads in a fight, to make 'em angry and distract 'em. My Pop's been doin' it to me all my life. It's easier than breathin', but somewhere along the way, I forgot why it makes 'em angry. I mean, I learned not to let on when I've been hurt. I'd just focus my anger into determination, fight harder, win. That was supposed to be all that mattered." She paused for several breaths. Raising her hands, she clawed at the open mesh of the fence and continued on her original track, "As soon as I said it, I knew I'd hurt him. I'd hurt him worse than anything I'd ever done to him, including causing his curse."

            Akane's head snapped up at that. 

            Without turning, Ranma explained, "The curse was an accident, but, it was still my fault. I was outta control and didn't even notice I'd knocked him off the cliff. I ruined his life, and I almost did it again last night, and for the same stupid reason." With this, she turned around and looked at Akane. "I was scared, Akane. The first time, I was scared because I thought I would spend the rest of my life as a girl. The second time, I was scared because I thought I HAD to be a guy again. I was afraid that I couldn't be a guy and feel the things I did, so I tried to break it all off."

            Akane was wide eyed at this point. "You…" she frowned, not sure what to say. What to ask. She wanted to ask what those unmanly feeling were, but she did not really want to know. 

            Ranma already knew what she was going to ask. "…Love him," she finished for Akane. She crossed her arms and maintained a level gaze. "And it scares the hell out of me," she admitted. "I just don't understand it. I can't believe how bad it hurt him when I did that; how much I hated myself for doin' it. I don't ever wanna do that again. I like to win, Akane, but I don't like hurting people. Not like that." Ranma looked down, a look of agony and self condemnation hidden behind her bangs. 

            Akane was still reeling from the shock of hearing her calmly declare her love for Ryouga. She felt so light, so hollow, as if someone had slit her open and scooped out her insides, and she struggled to breathe, waiting for the pain to consume her. 

            "What my Mom did was bad enough," Ranma went on, trying not to see the look of devastation on Akane's face. "The whole stupid engagement thing is a problem that just won't die. I wouldn't blame you if you said that stuff just to hurt Ryouga, after findin' out his secret like that, and it sucks that Mom would use that to keep the engagement going, but…" She bit her lip. Taking a deep breath she reached out and grabbed Akane's hand. "It was kinda obvious that you cared about me, when you've been fighting to tell people I need to have a say in who and what I am. That was enough to know you were special, a good person inside. I just didn't think it was me. I didn't think it was for me. I mean, you always speak up for the underdog, you know? You always fight because it's the right thing to do." With her other hand, she gently cupped Akane's chin and tilted her head up to look into her eyes. 

            Akane's heart had resumed beating, and sped up as Ranma's words about her spilled out. Now she looked into her eyes with guarded hope and apprehension. 

            "I didn't know you really liked me," Ranma confessed openly. "I didn't know you had any special feelings for me. So, I really meant it when I said I should be asking if YOU wanted ME. I wasn't tryin' to force you to admit your feelings," she emphasized. "I've only just realized how much I hurt people with the stuff I say. I wasn't askin' to feel better about myself. I just… I don't understand why you would care about me, LOVE me, when it's really Ranko you've been through all of this engagement crap with."

            Akane stared into Ranma's eyes for a long moment. She looked hurt and troubled. She looked afraid. Not, she suspected, because she thought Akane was lying about her feelings, but because they might be real. "Why do you need to know?" Akane challenged, unable to begin explaining her feelings. She was too unsure of them herself. 

            "Come on, Akane!" Ranma hardened her features, just shy of angry. "One thing I do know is that you were never like the other girls, chasin' after 'Ranma' like some trophy! It's bad enough that I have'ta choose you if I want my Mom to see me as a guy! It's bad enough I could ruin both our lives, and destroy Ryouga, just because I'd do almost anything to be a guy again! Now I have to worry that, no matter what I do, it's gonna hurt someone I care about really really bad."

            Akane blinked. By now, her heart was pounding from the effect of Ranma's words. She carefully collected her thoughts and timidly asked, "Are… are you saying you care about me?"

            "Don't be stupid, Akane! Of course I care about you! You're my friend!"

            "Is… is that it? Is that all I am? A friend?"

            Ranma let go of the girl's chin and stomped away from her. "Don't do this! Don't ask me to give you a reason to love me! I'm not askin' for that. Not from you, not from Ryouga, and sure as hell not from any of the others!" she shouted, beginning to lose her composure. After storming around in a wide circle around a very nervous Akane, she returned to face her. "Ryouga dropped everything and chased me all the way to China because he didn't get to say good bye to me when Pops and I moved on. Because he became afraid I never even cared for him as a friend, he worked himself up to tryin' to kill me! Do you think I don't know what it'll do to him if I dumped him!? You think you're stubborn! I'm the best thing that ever happened to him! He'll tear down the world to keep me! He would not stop while there was the slightest hope of having me, and the only way to stop him is to destroy that hope, and pray you're not in the same country what that destroys him!"

            Akane gulped. She only recently discovered how little she had really known Ryouga, but she knew him well enough to know Ranma was right. However, her own stubbornness was ready to assert itself. "What does that have to do with what I feel?"

            Ranma stared at her with bulging eyes. Coughing and clearing her throat, she grinned lopsidedly, "No offense, Akane, but the only person I know with a worse temper than Ryouga is you." 

            "What!?" Akane roared in instant indignation. 

            "Case in point," Ranma hastily backpedaled as Akane's aura flared up and filled the street. She discretely pointed out the manifestation of the other girl's anger. "If you could control and channel that, it'd rival Ryouga's Perfect Shishihokodan."

            Akane finally noticed her aura, not quite aware that the storm of emotions seething inside her since the beginning of the week had fed into it, filling it out and awaiting release through her one emotional outlet. Violence. As she twitched and choked in disbelief, the miasma dissipated. 

            Seeing her calm, Ranma returned to the point. "Why me, Akane? I mean, it almost makes sense that you'd have feelings for Ranko after all you've been through. I ask the same thing about Ryouga. At least with him, we were friends before Jusenkyo, and I took over the part of Ranko he finally opened up to. I was there in his arms when I woke up. It's confusing as hell, but I can see why he'd be hung up on me. I can't see that with you," she confessed. 

            Akane bit her lip and looked away. 

            "Do you love Ranko?" Ranma pressed. 

            Akane nodded, hesitantly. 

            "Do you… do you think it won't work because she's a girl?"

            "No," Akane heaved a heavy sigh and looked back, pain open on her face. "It's not Ranko. I mean, yeah, she says she's both male and female, but I think she's fine just the way she is. I don't mind that she's a girl in her own mind, and I wouldn't expect her to be a man just for me. The problem is… I don't think I could be a man for her. I don't think I can be what she needs," Akane cried, fighting sudden tears. 

            Ranma blinked and sagged a little in understanding. "So, you want me because I'm really a guy inside. You don't think I would need that," she concluded sadly. Akane nodded. Ranma stood looking at her for a moment. "Akane… I don't know how to say this, but… you're wrong. I mean, come on… I've been with Ryouga and I'm not exactly running in terror from him."

            Akane glanced over, caught the look on her face and erupted into laughter. When she calmed down from the nervous outburst, she shook her head, "I can't believe I didn't think of that." Becoming more serious, she crossed her arms and thought. Swallowing, she reviewed her thoughts and feelings, remembering her comment to the other girls about taking a curse to be worthy of chasing Ranma or Ranko. "I guess I didn't make myself very clear," she resumed, hesitantly. "I did not mean, I would not take a curse for her. I'd do that for either of you. I just don't think I can be the man in a relationship. Do you understand what I mean?" 

            Ranma gaped, and shook her head, "Oh, no. Not you too!"

            "What?"

            "Ryouga said the same exact thing!" Ranma growled, then started waving her hands, "I mean, about getting cursed, not about being the man in the relationship. Sheesh, once you start talking about bein' cursed, it's hard to say there is a man in the relationship. Once you start flippin' back and forth, it's just two people, and it's just love. Nothin' else can work."

            Akane pondered that. "Ryouga offered to get a girl curse?"

            "Yes."

            "Is that why… is that why you want him… instead of me?"

            "You're doin' it again!"

            "What!?"

            "You're makin' assumptions about what I feel about you!"

            "Well, you're not telling me what you feel!"

            "I can't!"

            "Why not!?"

            "Because you don't know what your feelings about me are! I'm not going to make the same mistake with you I did with Ukyo!" Ranma almost shouted. 

            Akane stiffened. "You don't want me to fall in love with you?"

            "Why? So I can agonize over whose heart I'm gonna have to rip out!?"

            That finally stopped Akane. 

            Ranma looked at her with the look of a tortured soul.

            Akane's eyes narrowed. "If I don't love you, you're going to remain a girl," she suddenly declared. Ranma winced and looked around wildly, trying to find something to focus on too late to avoid meeting Akane's eyes. Akane advanced slowly on the smaller girl. "I'm right, aren't I? You're not choosing between the ones you love. You're trying to make sure you don't hurt one of them. You love both of us!" she smiled in triumph and joy.

            Ranma dropped to the ground as if she had been hammered right over the head, and just as abruptly. Fighting to avoid an emotional collapse as well, she raged, "But you don't love me, Akane! You love Ranko! It doesn't matter what I feel! Don't you understand! You CAN'T love me!"

            "Why are you saying that!?" Akane fumed, dropping to her knees in front of Ranma, instant agony lacing her voice. "How can you say that?" she added, in a smaller voice. "Are you the only person in the world that can love two people!?"

            "Do you think that's a good thing!" Ranma snapped. 

            "How can loving someone be a bad thing!" Akane retorted.

            "When you can't be with them!!!" Ranma roared, grabbing the other girl roughly by the arms and shaking her. "Don't you remember in the bath? Don't you remember the way I went off on you!?" Ranma demanded, bringing up the moment when, as 'Ranko', she had accepted she would never be with Akane. A look of realization blossomed on Akane's face. "It's the same thing I did to Ryouga, but that was just cutting out my own heart. I can't do that to you! I can't do that to me again!"

            "But… don't you understand…?" Akane whimpered, gazing back into Ranma's eyes. "That's what I'm trying to prevent. Do you have any idea what it was like for me, watching 'Ranma' be destroyed by the mirror? Ranko was never really you, but I never knew that. I had to watch 'Ranma' die before I could meet Ranko… and yes, I did fall in love with her, but that's because I was already in love with you!"

            Ranma gasped in pain. "No!" she breathed. "Stop it, Akane! Please, stop it!" Shaking her head, she shoved the other girl away and tried to lurch to her feet.

            Akane reeled back, but since she was kneeling, she easily absorbed the force and launched herself back at Ranma, tackling her to the ground. The two scuffled on the sidewalk for a moment, until Akane managed to pin her. That would not have even been possible if the other girl had not been emotionally devastated. "Ranma! What the hell is wrong with you!"

            Ranma was muttering to herself, ignoring the other girl entirely. "There's no way to win. There isn't even a way to win by losing. I can't protect anyone!"

            Akane slapped her across the face. The sharp, stinging pain brought Ranma back into focus. "Are you a complete idiot!?" Akane shouted from centimeters away. Ranma twitched, and reddened as emotional agony bled into contained rage. "This isn't some martial arts competition! It's not about winning! It's about living! Life is mean and nasty and ugly, and there's nothing you can do to keep other's from getting hurt!" Akane roared on. "Do you think it's your fault that Ryouga or I can get hurt!? Is it your fault we love you!?"

            Ranma battled her rage, fighting the old urge to retort, to fling the pain another's words caused back at them. One small part of her mind was in awe of the fact that Akane was openly declaring her love. Challenging her with it, in fact. "How can you say that?" she asked in a small voice. "How can you suddenly say you love me, like you've never doubted it a minute?"

            Akane reared back. Unwanted though it was, that was a good question. One what was screaming at her from the back of her own mind. Over the past few months, nothing had frightened her more than allowing herself to even hint that she had feelings for the jerk, even to herself. Instantly, she corrected herself. Until this morning, nothing had frightened her more. Since this morning, she had been more afraid that it was already to late to admit it. That fear had sent her racing after her, shouting that she wanted her. That fear had made her throw all her arguments and self justifications at Ranma, trying to answer her challenge that she did not love her. Now, looking down into those big, blue eyes, she understood her fear. "I can't say I didn't deny it. I was afraid to admit it to myself. I was afraid of what would happen if I did. Now, I am more afraid of what will happen if I don't," she sighed.

            Ranma watched the emotions play across Akane's face, testifying to the truth of her words. It was easy to read, because she was familiar with all of those feelings. Fear, shame, guilt, uncertainty, inadequacy, loneliness, desire, hope, but above all, love. 

            Akane noticed something had spilled out of Ranma's shirt, and picked it up. Recognizing the packet for what it was, she held it up in front of Ranma's eyes and declared, "If you really want me to prove it, well, one of us is going to need this."

            Ranma focused on the packet of Instant Nanniichaun and gulped. 

Fa Shen had not been entirely asleep when Shampoo snuck into the room with her. She had not been entirely awake either. The combined effect of the drugs Kodachi had doused her with had left her extremely detached from her body, the partial paralysis and arousal producing a delightful lethargy akin to sleep. The hallucinations brought on by the psychotropic added to the illusion by giving her consciousness a very dream like quality. Put simply, she was wide awake and thought she was dreaming. She had turned, slowly and weakly, and stared at Shampoo when she entered, then relaxed into her comfortable imitation of sleep. She had been too preoccupied trying to make sense of the images that formed behind her eyelids, blending fantasy and memory into a mysterious and alluring tapestry. Not too surprisingly, her mind had wandered eagerly through the intimate moments Copy-kun had experienced with Copy-chan and Ranma-chan and then elaborated on them. When Shampoo laid hands on her to roll her off the futon and undress her, Fa Shen pictured those hands as belonging to Ranko, and smiled in eager anticipation. When the girl poured cool water over her, and a distantly familiar tingle passed through her body, Fa Shen opened her eyes. With only mild surprise, she noticed she had become male, and decided she really was dreaming. 

            Blinking, she… he looked up into the eager eyes of Shampoo. Fa Shen's mind again tried to superimpose Ranko's image, but gave up after a moment. He was used to his dreaming mind confronting him with bizarre substitutions for the things he wanted to see. He decided his inherited brain was having some difficulty confronting him with his female image, and replaced it with Shampoo. She was certainly the one person who had made the greatest erotic impact on the masculine aspect Fa Shen inherited from Ranko. Fa Shen smirked as he noticed his reaction to being toweled off by Shampoo. The aphrodisiac that had aroused him as a girl was now reinforced by the powerful male libido that had shocked him upon awakening the night before. This was going to be a wonderful dream.

            Shampoo found herself relaxing and smiling. When she arrived in the room, she had a faint dread of mistaking Fa Shen for Ranko, but seeing the languid way this girl had moved, she had been confident it was Ranko. By the time she was undressed, Shampoo felt no need to hesitate before turning her into a boy. He had remained surprisingly calm and composed through the transformation. Apparently the drugs that had rubbed off on Ranko had put her into a mild trance state. As she pulled the cork on the bottle of chisuiiton water, she felt a moment of regret. She knew Ranko considered herself more of a girl, but that would leave her vulnerable to Mousse's challenge. As a boy, she had a much better chance of defeating him. If she locked the instant curse, it would be necessary to visit the Musk before she could go to Jusenkyo for the real curse, but Ranko had been prepared for that necessity last night anyway. When she realized that Shampoo had only done it to protect her, she would surely forgive her. With that justification, Shampoo poured the contents of the bottle over the temporary male form, making it permanent. 

            Fa Shen laughed as he was splashed again. "What's with the sponge bath, Shampoo?"

            Shampoo paused, nibbling on her lower lip. She knew that what she was doing could not go the way she wanted things to, ideally, and it was likely that Ranko would object to her intentions if he realized they were consummating the marriage. On the other hand, he seemed to be in a highly suggestible state. Somewhere inside, the girl-turned-boy was waking up to memories of being Fa Shen. How hard would it be to draw out that side of him? "Shampoo thought it be fun if Fa Shen pretend to be Airen with Shampoo. See what it like to be man with woman. Since Fa Shen reborn as man, is okay to turn into man for fun time with Shampoo," Shampoo smirked, again drying the boy off very carefully with the towel. She did not want to come into contact with any of the magical water she had just used. 

            Fa Shen gave her a confused look, remaining silent until the girl was done rubbing him down. Was it possible this was more than a dream? He blinked and rubbed his hands over his stomach and chest. It certainly felt real enough, and Shampoo seemed to be aware of who she really was. He knew that, in his former life, it was not uncommon for amazon girls to joke about using the nanniichaun as a way to experiment with sex without the complication of getting involved with boys. Under normal circumstances, that would never be allowed, but on the off chance that a girl did get such a curse, it took time before she could replace that curse with one that was not condemned and in that time things could happen. There was one problem, however. "But, I don't have a curse. How can I be a boy again!?"

            Shampoo picked up the packet from next to the bucket. "Is Instant Nanniichaun," she explained, letting the confused boy read the information on the packet. 

            "So, I'm not dreaming?" Fa Shen asked.

            "No is dreaming. Is just drugs," Shampoo pointed out. As she began to undress, she looked at him earnestly, "Is okay with you we do this?"

            Fa Shen looked up from the packet, realizing that Shampoo had given him a way to heal Ranko, and an opportunity to experiment before trying anything with Ranma. Fa Shen smiled, "Sure. I mean, it's not like I'll be married to you if we do. That would only happen if I was Ranko."

            Shampoo smiled in satisfaction. It had worked, she had tricked him into thinking he was Fa Shen. "Shampoo know. If Shampoo sleep with Ranko even one time, marriage is sealed. So, must go to amazon sister for just good time," Shampoo pointed out daringly. "But, you Fa Shen, so you no worry, yes?"

            Fa Shen laughed nervously, while nodding. Now that he was more familiar with the situation, through the memories he had inherited, it was easy to see how much the girl was in love with the person who had become Ranko. She had probably been ready to take the final step in her marriage from the moment she was defeated, and the long months since had worked her into a frenzy. While the marriage hung in limbo, she was free to indulge in purely physical affairs, but the only amazon male around was the last one she could risk that kind of intimacy with. Casual sex did not work with someone who was hopelessly obsessed. Of course, that was a fair description of any amazon male an amazon girl happened to take notice of, so it was more common for the girls to turn to each other to relieve their tensions. 

            Shampoo finished undressing and they faced each other, naked. It occurred to Fa Shen that he was hardly in his right mind. He knew that his one night as a boy had aroused a strong curiosity in him, and that the lustier part of Copy-kun/Ranma's memories, combined with Ranma's proposal that morning, had been an overwhelming temptation. How Shampoo knew she could take advantage of that was a mystery, but not as great as the mystery of why he was not freaked out and disgusted by being in a male body. After all, Fa Shen had ignored the chance to discover his full potential when he learned he would have to be cursed with a male body to attain it. His mind was still having difficulty coping with the strongly male perspective of the memories he gained from Copy-Ranma. He felt a bit lost and out of control, driven by male hormones and instincts he did not understand. His body was eager and excited, flooding his mind with impulses to act, seducing him with the promise of pleasure. It was overwhelming and left him completely uncertain if this was what he wanted, or if he simply lacked the will to resist. 

            "I can't believe I'm considering this," Fa Shen breathed.

            "Shampoo know. Is scary! But, Shampoo need this!" she responded, slinking forward with feline grace. 

            With some difficulty, Fa Shen crawled back onto the futon, and Shampoo followed him. Fa Shen felt his body responding to her proximity, and reminded himself that this was an experiment. How could he know if he wanted this until he had some idea what it was? He had ached to know if sex would make a difference, if it would affect him the way Ranma had been affected. He had regretted not having the chance to find out before his womanhood was restored. "I guess I kinda need it too," Fa Shen sighed, laying back and watching Shampoo crawl up the length of his body, her hands gently caressing the hard muscles as she advanced. Fa Shen allowed himself to become absorbed in her exploration, learning as much as she did from her probing touch. He knew where this was going, but it was going to take a little while to get there. They both had too much curiosity about this body they wanted to satisfy.

            Conversation ceased in favor of this wordless communication. 

             Already highly aroused, the patient touching, teasing, tickling torture of her fingers, lips and tongue sent Fa Shen into the throes of passion. He began to respond in kind, learning her body through gentle probing caresses, diving toward the one universal intimacy that was the kiss. This was something he did have some experience with, through Copy-kun, and he delighted in it. With that welcoming kiss, Shampoo melted, losing all thought of what she was doing, or why, and rejoicing in the long awaited response to all her advances. The first time they parted for breath, they were both more than ready for intercourse, but they continued kissing with a mindless passion. 

            While his tongue probed the soft, silken warmth of her mouth, his hands slithered over her body with an unerring certainty. With Shampoo straddling his waist, hunched close over his torso to drink in his kiss, he was able to reach almost every part of her, from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes. His fingers combed through her glorious mane, danced down her spine, over her buttocks and along the outside of her thigh. He slid them back up the top of her thigh, thumb trailing along the sensitive inner side, gripping her hips, then cupping her waist before brushing over her ribs to caress her breasts. Wherever his hands roamed, he knew where to find the little spots that made her moan and squeak with pleasure. Shampoo was forced to stretch out over his head and grip the top edge of the futon as he kneaded and massaged the pliant flesh, but this just brought those breasts within reach of his mouth. Kissing and licking one nipple, before sucking it into his mouth, he freed a hand to wander down her belly. With delicate, feather light strokes, he caressed her abdomen, quickly finding spots so sensitive she shuddered and twitched in ecstasy, while everything inside her churned into a hot, molten mass of aching desire. 

            Fa Shen grinned in delight at her response, amazed at how deeply her reactions affected him. Every gasp and moan he evoked from her sent a pleasant ache through his body. He felt the twitch of every muscle in her body under his hands, causing part of his mind to delve into the mystery of her anatomy, as if by touching her he somehow brought her into himself. It was not unlike the way the beauty of nature could pierce the soul. By touching her on the surface, she touched him somewhere deep within. So, what then if he sought out her depths? His hand strayed down, over a tiny field of purple curls, following the curve to the mouth of a spring that flowed hot and wet over delicate folds of flesh. 

            Shampoo gasped and cried out as his fingers slid over and through petals of pink, pulling them gently, causing them to slide over a nugget of mind jarring pleasure. Gentle fingertips slipped and pressed through the outer layers of her sex, a ceaseless circular flow of feeling that stabbed into the depths of her brain and body, waking up a desperate hunger. Just when it seemed impossible to endure, those slender digits probed deeper, finding the throat of her womanhood and feeding themselves into it. 

            Fa Shen freed his other hand and slid it down to Shampoo's waist, reaching around to press at the small of her back, while the first hand covered her vulva. His two middle fingers had slipped inside her, brushing against the hot velvet walls. The heel of that hand pressed down on her clitoris mercilessly as he strained to plunge those fingers inside her in long, slow strokes. 

            As much as this consumed her attention, Shampoo felt a deeper need and pushed herself back. One hand snaked down his front seeking out the part of him she truly wanted to invade her. Finding the hardened shaft, she straddled his hips and guided it to her center as she descended. Lost in the intense pleasure of his manipulations, the sharp pain that ripped through her as she impaled herself was quickly lost to a flood of ecstasy. She straightened and arched her back, savoring the moan Fa Shen released as she engulfed him down to the root. This whole adventure had started with him at a high level of arousal, and Shampoo had goaded him even higher with her kisses and caresses, but nothing compared to the sensation of that first thrust. Through the sensitive organ he had a keen awareness of being inside of her. His hands automatically converged on her hips and abdomen, exploring the wonder of a part of him becoming hers. 

            Shampoo recovered from that first thrust after a few breaths, and then began to roll her hips, savoring the feel of him shifting slightly within her, before tensing her thighs and raising herself up slowly. Fa Shen tensed and gasped at the sensation of her tight vagina sliding up around the hard column of his penis. Reaching the end of his shaft, she slowly descended, engulfing him again. It took several long strokes, gradually increasing the pace, for both of them to steel themselves to the faster rhythm their bodies cried out for. Naturally, the perfect tempo was set by the beat of their hearts, strong and steady from years of physical conditioning, but gradually speeding as they exerted themselves. As they hit their stride, panting and moaning, they were consumed by pleasure intense enough to seem like pain. It eclipsed all thoughts, and drove all feelings to passion, luring them on to a promise of something wonderful and almost unattainable. 

            As girls, both had long known how to stimulate themselves to orgasm, but Fa Shen, suddenly a stranger in his body, had only masturbated once as a boy. He endured the agonizing pleasure with no idea how to surrender to it, unwittingly prolonging the engagement. Shampoo, also a virgin, blindly sought release around the profound and unfamiliar experience of penetration. Thus, they suffered what many would deem the most pleasant part of intercourse far longer than a first, fumbling, foray into sexuality typically permitted. They had time to pause, when Shampoo limply lay forward, drawn hungrily to a lingering kiss, Fa Shen's member fully sheathed inside her. But the kissing would urge them on to renewed efforts. So it went, time passing unheeded as they tried new ways to please each other with their hands and mouths or their interlocked genitals. Shampoo was the first to find release, crying out in ecstasy. Only as she was coming down did Fa Shen unlock the mystery of his adopted sex, climaxing in a hot surge and a peak of sensitivity that made the slightest movement a shuddering, agonizing pleasure. 

            Sore, sweating and mildly disgusted at the mess, they wrinkled their noses and clung to each other in a tired embrace. Stunned at the sheer physical intensity, and their complete loss of control over themselves, they shared weary laughter but could not think of any words to speak. Neither had realized that sex was such an ordeal, a thing that could so drastically impact their hearts and minds, a bonding experience. The intimacy made them conscious of how little they knew each other, intimidating them. So, they did not speak. They just held on. 

            In another room, Nabiki decided they were through for the moment and leaned back from her computer and stretched. As she arched back, she noticed Ranko was standing behind her, her eyes wide and glued to the images on the screen. Nabiki realized she had been so absorbed in the action she had not noticed when Ranko dragged herself out of bed and staggered over to see what she was watching. 

            "Uh, Ranko?"

            Ranko blinked and came out of her shock. With an angry look, she pointed at the screen where multiple windows had shown the action from several different angles. "What is this!?" she demanded.

            "Modern technology," Nabiki quipped, straightening and turning the chair to face the girl. 

            "You have cameras in my room!" Ranko shouted. 

            "Shhh! Do you want them to hear you?"

            "Why do you have cameras in my room!?" Ranko dropped her voice. 

            Nabiki sighed, and waved a hand at the computer. "In case something like this happened," she stated very calmly.

            Ranko began to shake with fury. "What. Else. Have. You. Watched?" she clipped off each word, a faint aura rolling over the surface of her exposed skin. Nabiki held her breath. Considering how little ki the girl had, that was an impressive display of rage. 

            "No point hiding it now. Let's just say, the answer to the question you didn't ask is, 'Yes'," Nabiki cut to the chase. Ranko slowly raised her arm, hand held flat and vertical. Nabiki stared at her levelly, refusing to take the gesture as a threat. To her surprise, the hand snapped across her face, leaving a stinging red hand print on Nabiki's cheek, before the red-head seized up and toppled over at the end of the motion.

            Nabiki raised a stunned hand to her cheek and looked down at Ranko. She lay on her side, awkwardly, having obviously expended her energy with that one blow. From the look in her eyes, as they gazed up, she was painfully aware that she had left herself open to any retaliation Nabiki pleased. 

            "So, I guess you had some feminine modesty after all," Nabiki smirked, deciding she deserved the slap. She got up and collected Ranko off the floor and moved her to the bed, where she began to recover. Glancing at the computer to see the couple were still wrapped up on Ranko's futon, she commented, "When you've got yourself back together, do you want to come with me? I believe we should catch them now to make sure Shampoo realizes that isn't you in there."

            Ranko blinked, suddenly understanding what would happen if Shampoo were allowed to claim she had sex with her. "Let's not wait," she declared, struggling with slow, trembling limbs to sit up. Nabiki sighed and took her hands, pulling her up and dragging one of the girl's arms over her shoulder to support her. 

            The two of them shuffled out the door to Nabiki's room and down the hall to the guest room. Checking to make sure she had a good grip on Ranko, Nabiki used her other hand to sweep the shoji open. As the naked, exhausted couple jerked around to look at them, Ranko stared at Fa Shen, "First Ranma, now you. What were you thinking, Fa Shen?"

            The boy blushed to his roots, his hands scrabbling around in desperate search of a blanket or something to cover Shampoo and himself up with. 

            Nabiki looked down in appreciation and smirked. "Well, at least you're still a natural red head, Fa Shen. I guess Cologne was right about the Togenkyo taint." Ranko blinked and took a second glance. Sure enough, the girl turned boy had the same shade of crimson hair she did. Apart from that, he looked like the boy she had been—at least part of the time. 

            "Why you call Ranko Fa Shen?" Shampoo demanded, stretching unselfconsciously. It was pretty evident that peculiar lavender purple was her natural hair color too. 

            "No one's callin' me Fa Shen," Ranko scowled. 

            Shampoo stiffened. She slowly turned to the boy beside her. She whipped her head back to Ranko and wailed, "YOU'RE Ranko!!?" When the red-headed girl nodded, Shampoo collapsed into tears, mumbling to herself.

            At this, Fa Shen got really nervous. "I thought you knew who I was. Didn't you say…"

            "Shampoo so SO sorry!" she bawled grabbing the boy around the neck and weeping onto his broad chest. When everyone stared at her in confusion, Shampoo let go of Fa Shen and scrabbled around until she found the empty bottle. She handed it to Fa Shen and proceeded to wail like it was the end of the world. Fa Shen turned the bottle over and read the label, which was hand written in Chinese. He paled and raced out of the room and down the stairs. Before anyone could catch up with him, his scream shook the house.


	39. Poetic Justice

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Thirty-Nine: Poetic Justice

Fa Shen's scream of grief quickly turned into a roar of anger. Nabiki, still encumbered with Ranko, had only made it to the top of the stairs by the time the unhappy boy discovered the permanence of his condition. As the angry outcry grew nearer, warning of his imminent return, she glanced at Ranko and desperately wished she was at full strength. Nabiki knew none of them were fit to challenge Fa Shen's wrath. Not that Ranko did not try to intercept the boy as he flew up the stairs at them. With perfect timing, she launched herself at the naked boy and clamped on with her paralyzed death grip, thinking to weigh him down until he could be reasoned with, but she did not count on the flood of energy that poured into her and gave her the strength to flinch back in surprise. While she berated herself for forgetting he would be charged up after his intimacy with Shampoo, he carefully shook her off of him and laid her down in the hall without pausing. 

            "No! Fa Shen! You can't fight her in that form!" Ranko cried out in desperation, as he charged into the guest room. Ranko pushed herself up to her hands and knees, amazed to discover she had enough command of her body to even rise to her feet if she wanted to. Pushing that aside, she reminded herself that Fa Shen had none of Ranma's hang ups about beating up girls, and Shampoo had given him more than enough reason. The problem was, Fa Shen probably would not kill her, meaning a certain defeat for Shampoo, and Ranko did not know if Fa Shen in male form would be considered an amazon. Beating the girl up could result in a pre-consummated marriage. 

            "Who said anything about fighting!?" Fa Shen shouted, picking up the bucket Shampoo had activated the Instant Nanniichaun in, and smiling as he confirmed it was still half full. With no ceremony, he dumped the remaining fluid over Shampoo's naked form. The sight of water approaching Shampoo was enough to make Ranko leap, screaming, back out of the room, just as she managed to enter it. The shock of cold and transformation was enough to snap Shampoo out of his sobbing. While he gasped in disbelief, Fa Shen went to the closet and rummaged around in Ranma's belongings. 

            "What are you doing, Fa Shen? Why did you turn her into a boy? What's that going to accomplish?" Nabiki edged into the room trying to sound calm and rational. When Fa Shen turned around, holding a small block of soap in his hands, Nabiki's eyes widened. "What is that?"

            Fa Shen ignored her and advanced once more on Shampoo. The formerly sexy and cute-as-kittens girl made a somewhat bishonen male, the flat chest and change in plumbing the only certain evidence that she had become a boy. It was the only thing that saved him from looking absolutely ridiculous with Shampoo's familiar hair style. His only move so far, clasping one hand to his chest and the other to his groin, had sufficed to leave him looking pole axed. He was too devastated by the confirmation of his transformation to resist when Fa Shen roughly began scrubbing the bar of soap over his damp skin, working up a heavy lather. 

            Ranko, recovering from her initial fear of Shampoo turning into a cat, had crept into the room and instantly knew what Fa Shen had found in the closet. "It's the water proof soap!" she moaned. "Fa Shen's locking her into that form with it!"

            "I thought that stuff just washed off after a while," Nabiki mumbled, while at the same time acknowledging to herself that it was a fitting retaliation.

            Fa Shen responded, not even pausing while he spread the thick lather over Shampoo's skin, "It will, but it works better on the cursed form. The magic is similar to the chisuiiton, but by putting it into the soap the temperature of the water doesn't matter, so it can lock either form." Shampoo stiffened and stared into Fa Shen's eyes in agonized shame. Fa Shen met her eyes with an adversarial calm, "I would suggest you use more of that chisuiiton water before this washes off, Shampoo. It would be a shame to have to kill you because you changed back before I did."

            Ranko and Nabiki exchanged wary looks.

            "Shampoo understand," he finally spoke, bowing his head as new tears spilled over his cheeks. Surprisingly, his voice was still a soprano, having only dropped to the pitch of most girl's voices. "Shampoo thank Fa Shen," he added in a choked sob. This made the two girls gape and tilt dangerously forward, right on the edge of toppling over. Fa Shen simply grunted, pulling the pins out of the purple hair and letting it down, rubbing the soapy lather into his scalp. 

            "What!!?" Nabiki and Ranko shouted in disbelief.

            Fa Shen looked up at them, scrubbing his way down the slender neck and shoulders to work on Shampoo's back. "For locking me in this form," Fa Shen indicated himself with a look of faint disgust, "she's lucky I didn't kill her on the spot. I may be entitled to be male on a temporary basis, but it is a serious crime to make it permanent. Even Cologne would put her to death for it. But, there are two problems. First, that it happened to me was an accident. Second, that she intended it for Ranko…" Fa Shen cut himself off and tightened his hands fiercely, making Shampoo gasp in pain as the fingers dug into his back. "She has to redeem herself for what she has done to me before she can answer for this insult to Ranko."

            Ranko cringed, but protested, "But, if it's a death sentence to turn an amazon maiden into a man, why would she even think of doing it to me!? Aren't I an amazon now too!?"

            This was where Fa Shen quit scrubbing, shoving Shampoo away and throwing the soap at him. Rising and wiping his hands on the towel Shampoo had used earlier, he snapped, "Well, that's the loophole. You were a man, and an outsider. If I had been you, what we just did would have consummated the marriage. As her husband, you would only be an 'honorary' woman, meaning that technically you would have declared yourself a man and she could force you to remain in that form with the lower status. That's what you would get for 'accepting' the marriage. To continue to pursue you, Mousse would then have to prove you were woman enough to claim a husband of your own and dissolve the marriage with Shampoo." Glaring at Shampoo, she concluded, "I shouldn't have to tell you that would be almost impossible for Mousse to do."

            Ranko turned on Shampoo, suddenly awakened to her own rage.

            Fa Shen resumed, "I'm guessing she did it because of Ryouga sleeping with Ranma, to make her claim stronger than Ryouga's. At the same time, it puts Mousse on the ropes, since he could not consummate a marriage with you if you were stuck as a boy. She would win the council decision by default, even if he managed to defeat you." In spite of his anger, Fa Shen recognized that most amazons would think Shampoo had been correct to attempt this, even though they would condemn her just as quickly for bungling it. Because of the risk she took, she deserved some respect. 

            Shampoo looked up at Ranko pathetically, "Shampoo only do to protect Airen from Ryouga and Mousse!" That made Ranko close her eyes and strain to contain herself. She could almost forgive Shampoo for trying to force her into marriage, but implying that she needed to be protected from either Ryouga or Mousse really was an insult. Shampoo reached out a pleading hand, "Shampoo no mean to force Ranko be man, was just to make stronger for challenge and to fool council! Shampoo plan to help Ranko get Kaisuifuu, become woman again!"

            Ranko turned her back and marched to the window. She did not trust herself to speak. Nabiki, however, came forward a pace, addressing Fa Shen. "What happens to Shampoo, now that you've turned her into a boy?" Between them, Shampoo continued to lather his arms and legs, completing the process started by Fa Shen. 

            Fa Shen sighed. "Shampoo is not a boy. I don't know what happened to Shampoo. Maybe while I am looking for the Kaisuifuu to fix this 'accident' I'll find her. Until then, I will do my best to take care of this outsider boy, 'Shun', so no amazon girls challenge him to a matrimonial battle. I understand he is very strong, and many would think he'd make a good husband and strengthen the tribe," he responded with a meaningful casualness.

            Nabiki blinked, recognizing double talk when she heard it, and understanding that Fa Shen was creating this fiction on the spot to protect Shampoo. With her keen mind, she realized instantly how serious the situation had become for Shampoo. With a shudder, Nabiki thanked the heavens she had not been born an amazon. Given her habit of bending—and sometimes breaking—rules, she would not fare well in a society with such harsh laws and harsher punishments for those who defied them. 

            Shampoo, now dubbed 'Shun' blinked once, then lurched to his feet. With the new identity had suddenly come new hope and opportunities. Shrugging off the dreadful contemplation of how he had doomed himself, he clung to the one thing that really mattered. Facing Ranko, he raised his voice, "Ranko! Shun challenge for hand in marriage!"

            Ranko whipped around and stared at the effeminate boy. Nabiki and Fa Shen jerked, giving Shun and Ranko sharp looks, before looking at each other and sighing heavily. "Should have seen that one coming," the boy and girl grumbled at the same time. 

            Fa Shen walked over to where Ranko was fisting her hands and gnashing her teeth in fury. Taking her by the shoulder, he led her out of the room. Out in the hall, he bent close and spoke to her. After a while, Ranko relaxed, searching his gaze for a moment, and then returned to the room. 

            Stopping right in front of Shun, she declared, "I can't fight you until I recover. Because I have already been challenged, you have to fight my challenger to determine who I will face first. If the winner of that fight cannot beat me, I will face the loser." With that said, the anger drained out of her, and she reached out to take the boy by the shoulders. Now that they were both standing, she realized that the boy was a little taller than Shampoo had been. He stood about Ukyo's height, and the androgynous features and long hair hanging straight down only increased the resemblance to the okonomiyaki chef. "What are you thinking, challenging me as a man!? Don't you realize that if you win, you have to stay that way?" Ranko demanded. 

            "Sha… Shun know what doing. Shun make good husband for Ranko. Shun know is okay for outsider husband to take nyanniichaun curse if wife also have male form. Make better mate for cursed wife, and can be honorary woman if strong warrior," Shun argued, instantly seeing a way to benefit from Shampoo's shame. In a much smaller voice, he added, "Shampoo give up self to pay for insult and dishonor to Ranko."

            Ranko rolled her eyes, "But, you can't get a nyanniichaun curse! You're already a girl! You can't lock yourself in this form and get cursed on top of it, don't you remember what the old hag said when my curse was locked!? Jusenkyo can't curse you over the Chisuiiton!"

            Shun looked down. His mind was racing. Fa Shen had not been lying about Cologne's reaction to what he had done. Once she learned of it, no matter how dear or important Shampoo had been to her, she would pronounce sentence on her great-granddaughter. There was no hiding it either. It was far more dangerous to cover it up and have the truth come out later. Besides, Fa Shen had to tell Cologne exactly how she had been stuck as a man to retain her own honor, so Shampoo's honor could not be spared. Fa Shen had given him the best chance of survival. The typical response of her tribe, to members who violated the ban on changing sexes, was to ignore their true identity and treat them as an outsider of their adopted sex. By punishing Shampoo this way, Fa Shen had cancelled the debt Shampoo owed her for her actions. Cologne would turn a blind eye to the matter, unless Shampoo's true form was restored. If Fa Shen was still stuck as a man, Shampoo would be put to death. Of course, that was also the punishment she faced for trying to do it to Ranko. It was ironic. If she had succeeded, she would have been fine, but because she failed, she was doomed. With a sick smile, Shun met Ranko's eyes.

            "Shun know other way to become permanent man. Is also way for Shampoo to die with honor," he declared. 

            That made everyone stare at her in confusion. 

            "What the hell are you talkin' about!?" Ranko roared. 

            "Shun know how mirror work now. Is simple, make male reflection, let soap wash off, Shampoo be executed and then is nothing but Shun, who normal man," he spelled out with an eerie, fatal grin. Nabiki, Fa Shen and Ranko simply could not respond to that. It was too insane. Obviously, Ryouga had not been the only one to contemplate exploiting the mirror for a cure. Shun's grin grew wider and suddenly became genuine, "Also, no more become cat!" 

Ranma and Akane had remained locked in silence, following Akane's proposition, for several long minutes. Then, Ranma had carefully explained the desperate reasons that led her predecessor, Copy-Ranko, to drag Ryouga into the bushes. Emphasizing that it would not have happened if the girl had not feared losing her affection for Ryouga, after merging with Ranma-chan, if the two had actually visited the mirror to free Fa Shen. She had done it to ensure that whoever she became next would love him as much as she did. With a scowl, Ranma admitted she had succeeded. It was hard to be angry with her since she was gone now, except as an intimate part of Ranma. Reminding Akane that she only offered her virtue as proof of her feelings, Ranma told her she was already convinced and argued against rushing into bed. They were supposed to be looking for Fa Shen anyway. Akane did not want to back down, since once she voiced the impulse, she found herself wanting to follow through with it, whatever the consequences. However, Ranma refused to discuss it, dragging them both to their feet and resuming the walk to Dr. Tofu's. 

            The couple arrived to find she was not present, and the doctor was still busy conferring with Nodoka. After asking them to call the dojo if Fa Shen showed up, they hit the streets again to continue the search. For over an hour, they raced through the ward, spurred on by an occasional classmate's claim of having seen Ranma's girl form pass by earlier. Neither of them thought to wonder why so many students had cut classes to loiter on park benches or street corners, and none of the students seemed to wonder why Ranma was apparently chasing herself down. The one time a girl commented on the oddity, it was to ask if "Copy-chan" was out chasing boys again. If a rumor like that had gotten around, it was hardly a mystery why the students were cutting class. The boys would be making obvious targets of themselves, and the girls would be eager to catch them in the act and gossip about it. Because they were so used to Nabiki's factors being reliable sources of information, Ranma and Akane never became suspicious that they were the only ones who seemed to have seen Fa Shen rampaging through the streets. 

            Thus, it took more than an hour for the two to decide there was something fishy going on, and agree to head back to the dojo to see if anyone else had any luck. On the way back, they gradually encountered the other searchers, who reported being led on a wild goose chase too. Even Ukyo—who had met up with Soun and Genma on her way back to report that Kodachi reached Tatewaki at school before the chef could stop her—had joined the futile search. Ranma and Akane had run into Ukyo first. Then, the three of them ran into Kasumi as she returned leading Ryouga back from the market. Cologne and Mousse had met them at the next intersection, approaching from opposite streets. Two blocks from the dojo, Genma and Soun stumbled into view. They had made the round of all the bars in Nerima, and quenched their thirst at every stop, apparently. After comparing notes, it was concluded that not even Ryouga could have eluded the search they had conducted, and with him there would have been the chance he was not even IN Nerima while they were searching. By the time they reached the dojo, the only people who had not met up with them were Nabiki and Shampoo.

            "Didn't Shampoo take off first?" Akane asked. 

            "Yeah, and Nabiki was last to leave. She had to go back for her coat," Ranma observed. She frowned. "I can't believe we left Ranko in the house alone," she suddenly cried, slapping herself on the forehead. Bursting into a run, she raced ahead into the house. The others picked up their pace and poured in after her. Because Ranma had stopped as soon as she entered the house, the others crashed into her and ground her underfoot before piling up in a heap in the genkan. It took a minute to sort themselves out and discover what had stopped Ranma in her tracks. The answer proved to be the sight of two oddly familiar boys sitting on the steps of the stair case along with Ranko and Nabiki. The four all had grim, thoughtful faces, and looked reluctant to speak. Even Nabiki was too preoccupied to comment on the slapstick arrival of family and friends. As voices rose in query, Ranko cleared her throat and called out:

            "Someone restrain Mousse."

            That was a good way of announcing that there was some bad news coming, and one only had to look at the purple haired boy sitting behind Ranko to dread what it was. He had been dressed in one of Ranma's white, silk, Chinese shirts and a pair of black pants, both of which were slightly baggy on his slight frame. Cologne took one hard look at him before her eyes glazed over and she clutched a hand over her heart. Mousse, with his glasses resting atop his brow, only saw a blur of colors, and was so busy squinting to figure out what everyone was staring at, he was unprepared for Ryouga fulfilling Ranko's request. With casual indifference, he slammed his fist down on top of Mousse's head with a jarring crunch, as the boy's spine compacted to absorb the blow. Mousse blinked once, as his glasses fell to the tip of his nose, miraculously unbroken, then folded to the floor unconscious. Ryouga then looked up, and found himself staring at a male "Ranma" with red hair. 

            Everyone else with their wits half gathered was also staring at Fa Shen, a bit disturbed by the subtle difference. Ranma recovered first, after the sight uncapped memories that belonged to Fa Shen, shouting "Lo Shen! Die!" and launching herself at his throat. With wide eyes, Fa Shen jumped over the railing and raced down the hall and out into the yard. Ranma tore after him, completely out of her right mind. Ranko blinked several times and then looked down the hall thoughtfully.

            "I wonder why I didn't have that reaction?" she mused. 

            "Ranma?" Ryouga and Akane belatedly challenged. Before they could race after the girl of their dreams, Ranko leapt lightly over the rail and cut them off. It was hardly an impressive move, and any teenager could have pulled it off, but seeing Ranko function even at an average level for a normal person shocked everyone. That made it easy for her to stall them.

            "Wait," she pleaded, laying a hand on each of them, lightly grasping at their upper arms. "Ranma will probably snap out of it in a moment, and there's stuff we need to talk about first."

            Snapped out of their concern for Ranma, the pair suddenly realized they were standing shoulder to shoulder. Before Ryouga could flinch back, Akane produced her mallet and pounded him to the floor. "Don't TOUCH me!" she roared, huffing and backing up, rubbing at where they had been in contact with disgust. She had not forgotten his betrayal, but rather than continue punishing him, she withdrew behind Ranko. Through gritted teeth, she repeated to herself, "Ranma loves him. I can't kill him."

            Ranko sighed, and then led her into the Tea Room, gesturing for the others to follow. Ryouga picked himself up, rubbing his head and wincing, as he went over to pick up Mousse. Dragging the boy along, he followed the rest into the common room and found a seat at the table. Cologne shook herself and brought up the rear, one eye never leaving the purple haired boy. 

            "Can you explain what has happened in our absence?" the old woman inquired, sitting down where she could look at Ranko and still see the person Shampoo had become. 

            Nabiki reached out and stopped Ranko from answering. Fa Shen had prepped his former twin, but Nabiki felt herself far better suited to starting this tale. Clearing her throat, she explained, "I am afraid this is partly my fault. Shampoo was mistaken about Fa Shen's absence. When she checked upstairs, she found Fa Shen in the guest room and mistook her for Ranko. Ranko was actually locked in my room because we agreed the drugs affecting them made it wiser to keep them separated. Because I thought she was up to something, I did not correct Shampoo, hoping if I played along and let her clear the house I would find out what she was up to." Nabiki paused as she received a number of annoyed glares from people who just realized how she had given them the runaround. "After you all left, I snuck back in the house to wait for Shampoo to make her move. She slipped into the guest room with a bucket of Instant Nanniichaun and seduced Fa Shen, thinking he was Ranko," she continued.

            Cologne groaned, suddenly seeing exactly what had happened. 

            "Shampoo thought drugs confuse Ranko, make her think she Fa Shen, so Shampoo humor her," Shun cut in at this point, volunteering to explain why Fa Shen had gone along with Shampoo. Blushing, he continued, "Fa Shen not know Shampoo use chisuiiton water to make permanent. When Fa Shen find out, he punish Shampoo."

            Cologne finally turned to her former great-granddaughter, and demanded, "Who are you?"

            Shun blazed a deeper red, lowering his eyes in shame, "Am called 'Shun'. Am challenger to marry Ranko."

            Cologne could not help but smile faintly at the tenacity of her former heir. With a strange thickness to her voice, she nodded her head, "It is a pleasure to meet you, Shun. You look like you would make a fine husband for her. I wish you luck in your challenge."

            Ranko let out a breath she had been holding. Fa Shen and Shun had been right. Faced with an "outsider male" Cologne had been willing to completely ignore the truth. Taking a new breath, she proceeded with the story Fa Shen had instructed her in. "Fa Shen has banished Shampoo for the crimes she committed against her and myself. Because of her special status, and because she was a victim of Shampoo, she retains her identity as Fa Shen, but will act as a man for the duration of her search for a remedy, if that is required of her," Ranko forced herself through the formal phrases. 

            Cologne coughed. "As I recall, the girl was under the influence of drugs. It would only be appropriate to force her to live as a man if she were competent and willingly abused her special status to act as a man. As we are in a foreign land, I shall leave her behavior to her own judgment. It would be more convenient for her to pose as a man for now, but I will not require it of her," she dismissed. With a heavy sigh, she turned to the group. "Let it be known now that Shampoo is a fugitive from tribal justice. If she appears to you seeking aid or succor, know that you could be condemned for helping her. For your own sake, I urge you to simply apprehend her and turn her over to me for sentencing and execution."

            This made everyone rear back in shock. 

            Turning back to Ranko, she reached out and took her hand, "As the head of her family, I apologize to you for Shampoo's actions against you. I deeply regret that this has come to pass and pray that you will be satisfied with her death, should she return from her banishment to pay for her crime."

            Ranko choked back sudden tears and outrage. It simply blew her mind that Cologne could really be like this, damning her own heir for this stupid mistake. "The last thing that would satisfy me is her death!" Ranko shouted. "I know it was wrong, but it's not such an insult to me. She's my friend! I don't want her to die! There has to be another way!"

            Cologne gave her a sad smile. "It warms my heart that you could forgive her so easily; that you care even that much. I too wish there was another way. I have no desire to see her dead, believe me. But, the law is the law. I wish she had not been so rash!" Cologne had survived so many tragedies, she had made so many sacrifices, and along the way she had learned to face them with composure. For Ranko's sake, she allowed her mask to drop for a moment and reveal the agony she felt at this sudden blow. As the girl's eyes widened, she slipped the mask back up and silently praised Fa Shen's quick thinking. While Shampoo's life was forfeit, Cologne's great-grandchild would still live. Looking at the boy she had become, seeing the longing look he directed at Ranko, Cologne decided that, while Shampoo had lost her future, the boy "Shun" had found a way to keep pursuing the one part of it that had really mattered.  

            Ranko looked over at where Mousse was beginning to wake up and bit her lip. Impulsively, she turned back to Cologne, "What about Mousse?"

            Cologne frowned, understanding exactly what Ranko was asking. The blind boy would not be willing to turn a blind eye to Shampoo's act. His recent insult to her had caused him to stand off a bit, but his obsession was unwavering. He would not accept her transformation or her doom. At the same time, he would not be able to fight it. Turning to Shun, Cologne tested, "I believe you are aware of Ranko's special status?" She received the expected nod. "As an outsider familiar with our ways, I assume you are aware of the privilege you are allowed if you marry Ranko. Do you intend to take a female form if Ranko reclaims her male form?"

            "Shun want to be perfect mate for Ranko."

            Cologne turned back to Ranko, "I am afraid to say, the only hope Mousse has of being with the one he desires is through you, Ranko. As co-husband with Shun. It is unusual, but because he is an amazon, and Shun is not, he can pursue his challenge with you even if you are defeated by Shun. It is a rare privilege granted to amazon males, and he would retain a higher status over an outsider husband. Enough that he is permitted certain liberties with a FEMALE co-husband."

            Shun grit his teeth at this. He had not thought of that. 

            Ranko sensed his tension and asked again, "Are you certain there is no way for Shampoo to redeem herself?"

            Cologne folded her arms and bowed her head. 

            While Cologne was thinking, Ukyo interrupted. "Um, is it possible for an outsider GIRL to challenge an amazon woman for marriage?" When the weight of attention shifted to her, Ukyo winced and began to sweat. "I'm just curious!" Confronting a wall of glares, she threw up her hands and snarled, "Okay, I'm more than curious! I'll be honest, my chances with Ranma are pretty slim, and because of all that's happened, I really fell in love with Ranko here. Do I have to become a guy to try and win her, or can I try just the way I am!?"

            "Ukyo…" Ranko hunched down, feeling uncomfortable.

            "What!? You want to just be friends!? I wish that was enough, Ranko, I really do! I suppose we can't talk about what Shampoo's done to get her hands on you, but let me tell you, Sugar, she's not the only one that determined!"

            "Oh, for cryin' out loud! I can't marry EVERYONE!" Ranko shouted.

            At this point, Mousse sat up and shook his head, jumping right in with a grumpy question, "Now who's trying to marry you!?" Settling his glasses on his nose to take a good look at who was present, he turned around and spotted Shun. With a gasp, he rushed forward and began to pat him down in a panic. "No! Nonononono! This can't be happening!" he wailed, before Shun punched him square in the face, sending him flying across the room. 

            As he picked himself up and stared back in shock, Ryouga leaned over and muttered, "Meet Shun. He's challenging Ranko."

            "Shun!?" Mousse barked, glaring in suspicion. Straining with other senses, Mousse immediately confirmed his initial identification. Shun was Shampoo. He knew what that meant. Wailing again, he cried out, "What has happened to my beautiful Shampoo!!?"

            Cologne heaved a great sigh and proceeded to tell him the bad news, sparing none of the details. Three big points hammered the boy into the ground. Shampoo had given her virginity to Fa Shen. Shampoo was banished for locking Fa Shen in male form. Shampoo was condemned to die for that, and for her intention to do that to Ranko. It was as he lay in a heap of agonized devastation, staring with broken longing at Shun, that Ranma and Fa Shen dropped into the yard and passed into the house through the room, oblivious to everyone present. They were too absorbed in animated conversation, with Ranma cheerfully instructing Fa Shen in the use of condoms with the help of visual aids. It was pure luck that the most important part of the illustration occurred as they passed through the gawking crowd. Even Mousse fell silent in complete surprise. No one moved as the pair exited into the hall and climbed the stairs. A moment later, the faint sound of the shoji sliding shut and foot steps overhead in the guest room announced they had reached their destination. 

            Nabiki was the first to speak. "That's our Ranma. Jumping in with both feet. No second thoughts," she smirked. 

            Kasumi was a quick second. "Oh good, she already knows how to use a condom! I am so proud of her!" she sighed in relief. Everyone twisted their necks jerking around to stare at her in absolute disbelief. Kasumi blinked at suddenly finding herself the center of attention. "What? It's very important to practice safe sex. I just wish I had time to get her fitted for a diaphragm," Kasumi lamented. Soun, purple with embarrassment and chagrin, was the first to topple over. After a chorus of thuds, only Cologne and Kasumi remained upright. The girl looked at the old woman with a smile, and offered to fix her a cup of tea, as if nothing more momentous than a breeze had just stirred in the room. Cologne graciously accepted, still too stricken for outright laughter. 

As Fa Shen and Ranma entered the guest room, they were distracted from their conversation by the need to clean up the mess left over from Shampoo's banishment into male form. As they cleaned, Fa Shen finally filled Ranma in on what had actually happened. Ranma had already heard the beginning of it when she snapped out of her uncharacteristic rage, a bit shocked to be taken over by Fa Shen's memories, and asked why Fa Shen was a boy. The two had come to a stop on a rooftop, their clothes flapping a little in the breeze, struggling with odd feelings as they confronted each other. Fa Shen proceeded to describe what had happened when Shampoo snuck into the guest room, using Instant Nanniichaun and chisuiiton water to lock him in male form, and then seducing him. Ranma had been very shocked and asked if they had used a condom. Fa Shen had not understood what she meant, so Ranma described her confrontations with Nodoka in the restaurant's bathroom, reaching into her pocket to pull out a handful of condoms and the vibrator she had been given the night before.

            "What's all that?" Fa Shen asked in confusion. 

            "Well, these are what I'm talkin' about: Condoms," Ranma said, handing Fa Shen one of the foil wrapped objects. "My Mom gave these to me and told me to keep them handy at all times." When she returned home from the date and went upstairs to talk to Ranko, she had left the purse in the guest room. Later, when she was getting ready for bed, she had dumped everything in the little black purse into a pocket of her pajamas. She included the vibrator because she had not thought it a good idea to leave that loose in her room. She knew enough of the Hidden Weapons technique to obscure the mass and bulk so that no one would spot her carrying it all in the thin pajamas. When she swapped outfits with Fa Shen, she had automatically transferred all her belongings into her pant's pockets. Growing up with Genma, she had long been in the habit of keeping anything important on her person, so it had not taken much thought. 

            "And, what's that for?" Fa Shen indicated the slender cylinder. 

            Ranma blushed, "Ah, that's a vibrator. I think it was supposed to distract me from havin' sex with Ryouga." She laughed, "So far, the only time I've used it was when I WAS having sex with Ryouga. He found it when he was going for another condom, and couldn't believe I didn't know what to do with it, so he decided to, ah, demonstrate it on me." 

            Fa Shen gave her an odd look, reaching out a hand to examine it. In his former life, he had noticed that older girls had similar possessions, but the girl he had been then was well known for her aversion to sex so that might be why she was never given a lesson on the use and significance of dildos. After turning the smooth, tapered object over in his hands, he shrugged, "I've got something a lot better than that, if you're interested."

            Ranma stared up at him and blushed. It was the first direct comment on what Fa Shen's transformation had suddenly made possible again. "Ah, yeah. If the hair color's the only difference, I think I know that already," she chuckled, trying to take the shift in topic in stride. With a mischievous glint in her eye, she added, "I take it things weren't that bad with Shampoo, then?"

            Fa Shen scowled faintly, "Let's just say, I'm no longer intimidated by what we were planning." He shifted a little uncomfortably, noticing that the effects of the drugs, while diminished to the point where he was no longer incapacitated, had not entirely worn off. What had followed his liaison with Shampoo had cooled him off considerably, but the proximity of Ranma and the topic of conversation was swiftly summoning an erotic tension. Giving her a slightly hungry look, he tried to ask nonchalantly, "Are we still planning to, ah, do something to help Ranko?"

            Ranma sighed, realizing that she too was beginning to be affected by the legacy of Copy-chan and Copy-kun. It amazed her that a simple change in hair color was enough to dispel the awkward sense of looking at "himself" while the remaining features were enough to arouse the feelings Copy-chan had for her opposite. "We have to. The longer we wait, the worse it could be for her," Ranma confessed. With a frown, she pulled out a packet of Instant Nanniichaun and added, "Don't take this the wrong way, but I had hoped to be able to use this and do it as a guy."

            Fa Shen recognized the packet and sighed. He still did not know if he would be as willing to make the same sacrifice as "herself". Clearing his throat, he asked, "Are you worried about what your mother will think?"

            Ranma shrugged, "I can't even understand what Mom thinks. When she thought I was Ranko Tendo she was a lot more understanding, but once she knew I was me, she got a lot more uptight about me havin' sex as a girl. It doesn't make a difference to me, I'll do it with you anyway. Ranko needs it, and it's still a lot of fun. I'll just have to wait to find out what it's like as a guy." She looked up at Fa Shen, "What do you think? Is it good as a guy?"

            Fa Shen blushed and shoved his hands into his pockets. "Yeah. It was nice. It's kinda odd though. I'm a girl, and you're a boy, and we've both only had sex as the opposite. It's just too weird!"

            Ranma laughed. "Well, tell ya what, when we're both back to normal, we'll do it as ourselves to make up for it," she suggested casually. Putting the condoms in her hand back in her pocket, and the packet back in her shirt, she nudged him in the arm with her elbow. "Come on, I'll race you back to the dojo!"

            Fa Shen took off after her, sprinting to catch up and give her back her vibrator and the extra condom. This reminded Ranma that she had been about to demonstrate how to use a condom, so she proceeded to repeat what she had learned from her mother as they approached the dojo. 

            The electric dildo now lay on the futon, wrapped in a condom, as the pair finished scrubbing the traces of soap and water from the floor nearby. As soon as Fa Shen mentioned the nature of both soap and water, Ranma had distanced herself and busied herself fetching rags and cleaning supplies while Fa Shen scrubbed and filled Ranma in on Shampoo's fate. Reminded that he had only doused himself briefly in hot water, when he raced into the furo, he suggested they take a bath, when he was done cleaning the floor and bundling up the soiled towel and rags. Ranma agreed easily, putting away the buckets and brushes and grabbing her bath kit. In a moment, they were headed downstairs to the bath. As they passed by the common room, Nabiki turned on them with a sly grin.

            "That was awfully quick!"

            Ranma and Fa Shen stared at her, taking notice of everyone else staring at them in mute embarrassment. With narrowing eyes, they realized what she was implying and retorted, "Nabiki! It wasn't like that! We just cleaned up the mess from earlier and made sure if the floor got wet it wouldn't cause someone to turn into a guy and get stuck that way!"

            Nabiki raised an eyebrow, accepting it as a reasonable assertion. Focusing on the bathing supplies in the girl's arms, she smirked, "Right. So now you and Fa Shen are just going to take a little bath together?"

            Ranma nodded, not sensing the trap. 

            "Don't forget to take a condom!" Kasumi called out as they moved on toward the bath. Ranma just slipped a hand into her pocket and held a few foil packets over her head as she walked on.

            "I don't believe this!" Akane fumed, rising to her feet to follow. 

            "They're not going to…!" Ryouga also rose to his feet. 

            "Whoa! Hold on a minute, you two!" Nabiki blocked the door. Pointing to Ranko, she cleared her throat and challenged, "Are you forgetting why? You do want Ranko to get better, right?"

            "But…!" they both protested, petulantly. 

            "But what? I know you both want Ranma, but Fa Shen has to contribute too," Nabiki interrupted. "Should we find some Instant Nyannichaun? Give each of you a turn with both of them?" she pressed, looking frighteningly amused. 

            Ryouga pulled a handful of packets from his shirt, "That's no problem! I picked some up on my travels by mistake!" That drew everyone's attention, and Ryouga realized too late what he had done.

            "Let me guess, you can't really read Chinese?"

            "Say, have you tried to use those?"

            "AAAHHH! You PERVERT!" 

            Packets of Instant Nyanniichaun went flying as Akane clobbered Ryouga with the table. Ryouga hardly noticed the blow, since the table lacked the focused power of one of her mallet strikes, and proceeded to race around to pick up the packets he had dropped in surprise. Shun, Mousse and Ranko each managed to grab a couple and tuck them away before Ryouga collected the rest. Not amused to see him shrug off her punishment, Akane snagged a pitcher of water out of Kasumi's hands, and slung it's contents at Ryouga, just as one of the packets tore open in his hands. The water splashed right through the cloud of powder, activating the magic, just before Ryouga was doused. 

            "Eeep!" cried a distinctly feminine voice, as the lost boy suddenly found himself a girl. Several people collapsed in laughter, as the water sailed on and caught Mousse, Soun and Genma. The two fathers took one look at each other and keeled over unconscious. The sight was enough to shock Akane out of her rage. She stood there staring at her father in disbelief as Ryouga and Mousse patted themselves down and blushed in fury. 

            Nabiki sighed and rolled her eyes, "Sooner or later, this was just bound to happen!" Standing and walking over to Ryouga, she pulled the torn packet out of Ryouga's hand and read the label. After the first month of the Saotomes moving into the house, Nabiki had decided it would be wise to learn Chinese, but she still had only a limited grasp of the language. Handing the packet to Cologne, pointing to the characters written in a little star-burst graphic, she prompted, "Am I wrong about that saying something along the lines of, 'New and Improved' something or other?"

            Cologne held the packet and studied the text. "Why, no, Nabiki. This does seem to be an improved product," she smiled, clearing her throat to read on. "It says, 'New and Improved! Combined with our patented curse fixing Water Proof Soap formula, this fine Jusenkyo Product now lasts through several washings! Warning! Do not use on victims of actual Jusenkyo Curses!'"

            "What!? What does that mean!?" Mousse and Ryouga demanded. 

            Cologne flipped that packet over and read some more. When her eyes grew wide as saucers, the two former cursed boys began to sweat heavily. Turning to look at Mousse, she offered a sympathetic smile, "Lucky for you, Mousse, nothing like this has happened before. Seeing as it was an accident, the council might be very forgiving."

            Ryouga and Mousse gulped.

            "Forgiving of what?" Mousse breathed nervously. 

            Cologne handed her the packet, pointing out the blurb on the back side. With shaking hands, she read it, and then almost jumped out of her billowing robes. "No! That can't be!"

            "What!? What!?" Ryouga demanded. 

            "You! You IDIOT!" Mousse grabbed the lost "girl" by the neck and proceeded to throttle her. 

            "Don't tell me it's permanent!" Akane shouted, drawing Mousse's and Ryouga's attention back to herself, unwisely. 

            "Well, that's one possible outcome. We'll know in about a week," Cologne sighed. "If, as the comments on the back state, the lock is permanent, Mousse might be accepted by the tribe as a woman. If instead, this form over writes his natural or cursed form, a trip to Jusenkyo can bring back his male form or cure him of his female form. The latter might be dangerous, so I suppose he might be allowed to keep the female curse instead of risking the worst possible outcomes."

            Ryouga almost fainted. Since she was already half choked to death, it was not far to go. With a heroic effort, she roused herself, and jerked out of Mousse's grasp to demand, "What could be worse than any of that!?"

            Cologne composed herself. "Well, I am sure you've all been warned of the danger of curses combining if you try to replace one with another. Apparently, the magic used in this product is extremely unstable. There is a good chance you could be stuck with a hybrid woman-animal curse. If, instead, your present curse is over written, there is a very high chance of ending up with a hermaphrodite curse if you try to get a nanniichaun curse."

            Ryouga wailed in a kind of devastated depression only she had the depth of experience to achieve. 

            "Drag her outside! She's gonna pop!" Nabiki warned. Akane, conscious of the fact that her home might not survive if Ryouga cut loose, raced forward. Grabbing Ryouga and throwing her over her shoulder, she ran out into the yard. Setting her down by the wall, Akane looked down at the shaking, crying girl, and suddenly felt horrible. Drowning in a sudden flood of guilt ridden grief, she knelt in front of Ryouga and bowed. 

            "I am so sorry, Ryouga!" she apologized. The hurt and betrayal she still felt, over the discovery that he had used his curse to take advantage of her, was suddenly diminished by the realization that she might have done something far worse to Ryouga. After so many months around cursed people, Akane had forgotten that the magic was inherently dangerous. Splashing one of the cursed to punish them for slights or insults, or to vent her temper, had become a habit for her. Akane had never really considered the effect that had on people like Ranma; the trauma of the first transformation relived with each application of water. "I was just so angry at you! I didn't think…!" she confessed bitterly.

            Ryouga hiccupped and stopped crying, shaking herself out of the horrible visions of becoming a freak the next time her curse was activated. The sight of Akane's eyes welling with tears pulled at her heart, rousing her to comfort the girl she had secretly loved for so many months, "Hey, Akane, no. It's alright. I should be apologizing to you. You had a good reason to be mad at me. I should have told you about me from the beginning. I… I was just too afraid you'd hate me if told you, and the longer I waited, the worse it got." Ryouga shifted to her knees and reached out to her. "I really do owe you an explanation."

            "But I… I messed up your curse!" Akane protested, refusing to look up.

            "Oh, come on!" Ryouga laughed, "Turning into a pig was pretty messed up to begin with! It's not so bad to be turned into a girl instead. I've still got hands and I can talk… Who knows, I might even be really cute like this!" 

            Akane blinked and looked up at the nervous laughter. Taking a good look at her, Akane smiled and brushed her eye lashes with the back of her hand. "You know, you sorta do! Why is it when a boy gets turned into a girl, he looks so much better than real girls!?" she demanded, venting an old complaint with wry chuckle. While Ryouga searched for an answer, Akane returned to her misery, "Oh, but what if what she said happens!? Won't you hate me for that!?"

            Ryouga sobered. Looking down, she examined her hands, taking her first good lock at what had happened to her. With a deep breath, she responded, "Well, we won't know until, what? A week or so?" Akane nodded. Ryouga sighed, "With my life, I get used to expecting the worst. Just of late, though, I've discovered that good things can happen to me. Maybe I'll get lucky, maybe I'll come out of this better, not worse. And… maybe that can happen with us…"

            Akane pulled back and studied the other girl. "Wha… what do you mean?" she asked, uncertainly.

            Ryouga clasped her hands nervously, unable to raise her eyes. "Did-didn't you ever wonder why I did it? Why I pretended to be your pet, why I always brought you gifts and fought with Ranma?" she asked, her heart pounding heavily in her chest. Glancing up, she saw Akane lost in thought. Standing, and taking a few steps away, Ryouga pulled at her clothes, imitating Ranma by adjusting them to fit her new form. "When you took me in that first night, when you named me P-Chan… That was the first time in my life that anyone had been so nice to me. I can't tell you what it is like to be so small and afraid, never knowing if some one's going to try and eat you, and suddenly find yourself safe and warm in the arms of a giant. I can't tell you how it feels to 'belong' to someone. When I was P-Chan, things were so different from being human. What I felt, it's not like anything a human feels. When I became human, those feelings changed into love. But I also realized it was wrong, and I hated myself for taking advantage of you."

            Akane frowned, struggling to understand what she was saying.

            "It's funny, I was always me when I was in my cursed form, but I was never really myself. You see things and feel things different as an animal, and every time you found me and took me to bed, it touched off instincts that said it was right and normal. I was where I belonged," Ryouga went on, clenching her fists. "Animals have no shame. I wasn't exactly an animal, though. I knew you were a beautiful girl, and even as a pig, the part of me that was still a man was attracted to you. It wasn't enough to be your pet, I wanted you to see me as a man, but because of P-Chan, I was afraid to tell you how I felt."

            Ryouga turned to look at Akane. 

            "What… what are… why?" Akane was completely at a loss. 

            "I don't even want to go into Ranma…" Ryouga seemed to change the subject. Gritting her teeth, she addressed it anyway. "When I told him my curse was his fault, he promised never to reveal my weakness. He realized how easy it would be for an enemy to use my curse to cripple me and then kill me. But, the next thing I did, I made him my enemy. He kept trying to stop me from getting close to you, and you protected me, both as P-Chan and as myself. Since it didn't seem that you two really cared for each other, It didn't seem wrong to think I might win you myself."

            "That's why you were always fighting?" Akane covered her mouth, suddenly seeing how it all made sense. "You were fighting over me!"

            Ryouga nodded. "Because of you, we never got around to clearing up the misunderstanding that started my quest for revenge. I forgot that Ranma was my first and only true friend, until I met you."

            Akane stared at the girl, part of her mind wondering if the different form was what made this conversation possible. The image of Ryouga in his normal form still made her see red, when she summoned it, but this girl was like a different person. With a snarl, she realized he was like a second Ranma. "If you loved me so much, why did you sleep with Ranma!?" she demanded, trying to summon her anger. 

            Ryouga cringed. "Since you were the one to push us together, I suppose you know already," she retorted. "I didn't really have a chance with you or Akari. I knew I'd probably never be more than your pet, and the only reason Akari liked me was because I turned into a pig. I hate being a pig! It seemed kinda stupid to think I had a chance with girls who wanted me as a pig! Copy-chan was the one who made me see that, made me think there might be a girl who loved me for being a man. When she became 'Ranko' I was more afraid, but it was also better. She knew me for exactly what I was, and she still loved me. I realized I loved her for the same reason. I loved her because she was Ranma."

            "You… loved… Ranma?" Akane's eye twitched.

            Ryouga frowned. "I'm not some kinda pervert! I loved Ranma like a brother. I hated him because I started to think he might not have been a real friend. He had done so much for me, but I didn't know if he really cared or if he did it all to mock me. By the time I caught up to him in China, I'd spent too much time thinking about it, and the curse pushed me over the edge. But, can you really hate someone if they don't actually mean something important, deep down inside?"

            Akane stiffened and turned away, struck by the question. 

            "A lot of things happened between us, because of his curse," Ryouga continued. "I didn't really notice, until the koi rod, that Ranma could be as real as any other girl, but I couldn't let myself think about Ranma that way. It was just another reason to hate Ranma, that girl side. I doubt I could have let myself love Ranma like that if not for Copy-chan, and Ranma trying to be a girl."

            "But, that wasn't Ranma. That was Ranko," Akane protested. 

            Ryouga shook his head, "It was Ranma, in mind and spirit. Ranko WAS Ranma until Ranma got free of her. Of the two of them, Ranko's probably the real girl. The girl Ranma would have been if she hadn't been turned into a boy. They're two version's of the same person, I think. The difference is, I know who Ranma is. Ranko's still tryin' to figure out who she is."

            Akane nodded her head almost imperceptibly. "Okay, so we both have the same reason for saying we love Ranma instead of Ranko. If you say Ranko's the real girl, does that mean…?"

            "I love Ranma the person. Guy, girl… doesn't matter. With a curse like this," Ryouga gestured to herself, "it can't really matter. If it means I can be with Ranma, I'll stay like this. I believe Ranma when she says that being a girl doesn't make her any less of a man. I believe it can be true for me."

            "Do you mean that?" Akane bit her lip. 

            "Yes. So, don't worry about turnin' me into a girl," Ryouga returned to the original issue. "If I end up a freak, well, I guess that makes up for what I did to you, so I can't blame you."

            Akane considered that for several moments. Just as Ryouga was about to wander away, she reached out and pulled her back, seeking out her eyes. "Do you… do you still… have feelings for me?" she probed timidly.

            Ryouga carefully collected herself. Instead of making a direct answer, she said, "The worst thing about hating Ranma so much was still loving him anyway. Feelings don't ever die. The ones that do weren't real in the first place." She tried to pull away again, but Akane held fast. Ryouga, sighed. "I am glad we finally talked about this, but… we're going to be fighting over Ranma. Do you really want to complicate things?"

            Akane looked around nervously, and leaned in close. As her gaze hardened, a certain resemblance to Nabiki appeared. "If you don't want to talk about your feelings, how about we talk about mine? I'm not sure how to feel about the fact that a certain boy has been watching me in my most private moments for many months now. I don't think I need to mention some of the things that boy has seen, but from what I remember, I don't have much left to hide from him," she droned menacingly. 

            Ryouga began to sweat and try to pull back in fear. 

            Akane tightened her grip. "Now, I'd normally be satisfied with beating him to death for invading my privacy, but that would hurt some one I care about. Since I have to spare him, I'd say he owes me double, don't you agree?" she shook the girl slightly. Ryouga nodded feverishly. "Good. So, here's the deal," she smiled, pulling something out of her pocket. "I have another problem, and you might be the one to help me with it. You see, Ranma has certain needs I am not sure I can meet. It would be nice to find out before hand if I can… be what he needs." Akane held up a packet of Instant Nanniichaun between two fingers. With a toss of her head, she commented, "Now, it would be nice to know if there are any feelings to 'complicate things' but I can't be picky, can I?"

            Ryouga swallowed hard. "Akane…"

            Akane studied the lost girl's panicked face and eased up a bit. "You owe me, Ryouga. I know this isn't exactly the sort of thing either of us would normally ever consider, but too much is happening too fast. If I have to get naked and do the nasty to have a chance in this game, then I'll swallow my pride and go for it. I have to know if I can do this, and there are times when your rival is the only person you can trust. I know you won't tell, since it would hurt you as much as me."

            Ryouga hugged herself, both frightened and intimidated by Akane's demand. She had considered the price of being perfect for Ranma, the same sacrifice Akane was faced with. Confronting it so abruptly, however, she did not know if she was ready. "This… this isn't something to rush into, Akane," she tried to protest. 

            "You should have thought of that last night!" she snarled back. Putting the packet away, she smoothed down her skirt and spoke with more composure. "I am going to go get some things. You wait here, and I'll come get you. We can go over to your house, since there's probably no one there. If you're not here when I come out, don't bother ever coming back." 

            With that, she let go of Ryouga and rushed into the house. She slipped into Ranma's room to borrow some clothes and a certain bar of soap. Returning to her own room, she collected some other things. Stopping, she sat on the bed and spent a few minutes breathing deep, asking herself if she really meant to do this. For a long time, this had been her nightmare, succumbing to the pressure to become a man for the sake of her female husband. It was her greatest fear, and overcoming it would remove all the remaining doubts and obstacles between her and a relationship with Ranma. When she was sure she was willing, she considered Ryouga's feelings. She did not love him. She had only ever thought of him as a friend, and at present actually hated him. Was she forcing this on him in the hope of making him hate her too? She was not giving him a choice. It fit the technical definition of rape. Was this her revenge for his betrayal? Or was her excuse more real than she thought. Was it that she was simply terrified of trying this with Ranma and disappointing her?

            Shaking her head, she stood up. "Stop it!" she commanded herself. Grabbing a backpack, she put the articles she collected into it and rushed downstairs. Pausing in the kitchen, she told Kasumi she was taking Ryouga to her home and spending the night to help her get used to being a girl away from the chaos that followed Ranma. 

            Kasumi considered her youngest sister's statement, and decided that part of her reason for retreating like this was to escape from the thought of what Ranma and Fa Shen would be doing for Ranko. With a smile, she responded, "I think that would be a good idea. I believe I have the number for Ryouga-kun's home, so I'll call you if anything comes up. Have a nice sleep over!"

            "Thanks, Oneechan!" Akane kissed her on the cheek and rushed out to the back yard. In passing, she noticed Cologne giving Genma the bad news, and paused to see what kind of woman the heavy set man made. The main difference, the head cloth had been replaced by long black hair, and the glasses looked a bit overlarge on her face. The slender, muscled proportions of her body revealed that, in truth, Genma's bulk really had been mostly muscle. She almost wished she could be present when Nodoka returned for dinner. She hurried on, past her weeping father, who strikingly resembled Kasumi. Akane was a bit shocked by the image of Kasumi in her father's clothes, but shook it off, bidding her a quick farewell. 

            Ryouga was standing exactly where Akane had left her. The parting threat had been enough to keep her riveted in her tracks for fear of accidentally wandering off before Akane came to collect her. With few words, Akane took her hand and led her out of the compound and down the street. 


	40. Turnabout Is Fair Play

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Forty: Turnabout Is Fair Play

In the furo, two individuals were completely oblivious to the latest calamity to strike in the Tendo Dojo. That was not all the couple was oblivious to, however, as they stripped off their clothes and sank comfortably onto stools to begin their bath. It actually took them a moment to grasp the absurdity of their situation, when they finished dousing themselves with cold water and proceeded to lather their bodies with soap. It was one of those odd shifts in perspective that made them recognize, in a separated silence, that they had been put falsely at ease by each other's presence. One glimpse of her companion's male physique had instantly lulled Ranma into the familiar routine of bathing with another guy, and Fa Shen been equally disarmed by the sight of his companion. It was not until they turned their attention to themselves that they remembered there was a member of the opposite sex present. No matter how well they might adjust to their adopted sexes, they instinctively imposed their innate gender as part of their self image. The physical activity of cleaning the guest room had been enough of a break from their earlier discussion about sex to cause both of them to retreat from the personal consequences of their planned activities. 

            During an awkward moment, while they collected their wits and struggled with arousal sparked more by contact with their own flesh than thoughts of each other's, they had yet another chance to reflect on how much less intimidating the other was as a prospective partner for each of them than a person of their current sex. As they rinsed and turned toward the furo, their eyes met and they shared a smile at the irony of their situation. They only had to see the look on each other's faces to understand that nothing needed to be said. As incredibly bizarre as the situation was, by pure chance it was the most comfortable one for them. If not for the fact that, deep down, they were the same being, they would be the perfect couple. Any possible friction between them would have very pleasant undertones. It was actually rather frightening, and that spice of danger only made it more seductive. 

            As they soaked in the heat of the bath, they found themselves staring at each other hungrily. While it was true that the legacy of the reflections had left them with an attraction to each other, it paled beside the true hunger they had for each other's bodies. With a wry smile, Ranma met Fa Shen's eyes and remarked, "I'd trade you in a heartbeat if I could."

            Fa Shen blinked. "You'd give up being a girl that easily?"

            Ranma sighed. "I'd regret it later, but, yeah."

            Fa Shen chuckled and ran his hand through his hair. "Well, you could always get this form unlocked if you really wanted. I am sure you could deal with being stuck like this for a while a lot better than I."

            "I dunno," Ranma shrugged. "I've been stuck like this often enough that I just can't get all worked up about it. Somehow, someway, I'll come up with a solution. Why panic?"

            "Do you see me panicking?" Fa Shen calmly demanded. Ranma laughed at his stern face and splashed him. Fa Shen sputtered and blinked his eyes clear before lunging across the bath, hands thrusting under the water to attack her most ticklish spots. The bath water churned as the girl writhed and screeched through the provoked laughter. Ranma retaliated, true to form, forcing Fa Shen to overpower her smaller form and pin her down before one of them drowned. Never one to retreat from a challenge, Ranma wrestled against him with enthusiasm. The laughter and smiles turned to fiercer grins of joyful conflict, until their bodies suddenly locked together in a way that took the breath out of both of them. In response to Ranma's shocked gasp, Fa Shen stared into her dilating eyes and mumbled rapidly, "I'msorryI'msorryitwasanaccident!"

            Ranma blinked, her arms tensing around his back, making her aware of having embraced him automatically as he pierced her. She was about to brush off the apology when he moved to retreat, sending a bolt of lightening up her spine. "Stop! Stop!" she cried, her fingernails raking across his back, the pain forcing him to arch his back. Ranma grit her teeth as the movement caused him to plunge back into her hard. "Dammit, Fa Shen! Don't move!" she growled. 

            "Wha- what's wrong?" Fa Shen cried, going completely rigid. 

            Ranma was fighting for control, ordering her mind to tune out the siren's call of pleasure and lust. Thankfully, Fa Shen remained unmoving, if no less aroused. When she could trust herself to speak, and not say the wrong things, encouraging things, she finally explained. "If you start moving, there's no way we'll be able to stop before it's too late."

            Fa Shen frowned. "So?"

            "So!!?" Ranma almost punched him off of her. "So!!? Who's not wearing a condom!?" she growled into his face. Unfortunately, he flinched back from the intimidating glare that accompanied it, causing her to twitch and whimper in pleasure. The mad little voices in her head snarled at her efforts to maintain her sanity, pleading with and threatening her to get with the program. 

            Fa Shen frowned. Ranma had gone on about this earlier, and he had listened in confusion until he grasped that her concern was about the risk of disease and impregnation. Their exposure was too limited for disease to be a concern here. Glancing around, he spotted the foil packets she had brought into the bath, sitting innocently on the wash basin across the room from them. They might as well be in China. Fortunately, amazons had also been concerned about unwanted pregnancy, and in her time had been forced to come up with a more practical solution. Without warning, he placed his hands on her abdomen and summoned his ki. Projecting his aura into her body, flooding her with an electric heat that made her moan, he expertly examined and adjusted her reproductive organs. Recently acquired thoughts and ideas caused him to associate what he was doing with reading a clock and diffusing the bomb attached to it. 

            When he finished what he was doing, Ranma grabbed him and almost shouted, "What do you think you are doing!!?"

            "You don't want to get pregnant, right? I just fixed it so you won't."

            She blinked in surprise. "You can do that?"

            "I am an amazon warrior and a master of ki manipulation!" he snorted. "Of course I can do that!" He noticed her suspicious look. "I'm not joking. Birth control is essential for the freedom of women. If you can't guarantee enough able bodied women are ready to defend the tribe, the tribe can't survive. We didn't have condoms where I grew up. Herbal remedies were too unreliable. We had to come up with other ways of dealing with it."

            "Oh," she responded meekly. She shifted her weight, relaxing into a more comfortable position. When her pulse and breathing continued to remain rapid, she suddenly realized that the last thing she could be at the moment was calm. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was aware that they could be interrupted at any moment. Shoving that aside, she took on a determined look. Obviously, they were not going to have any difficulty with doing what they needed to for Ranko. Faced with that necessity, and the absolute assurance that she could not do otherwise at the moment, she grinned and decided to make the most of it. Leaning in, she captured his mouth and began kissing for all she was worth. Her hands began to wander, knowing instinctively how to encourage him. It did not take him long to respond appropriately. 

            All things considered, it was rather fortunate that everyone else in the compound was profoundly distracted by a different group of people's adventures in gender bending. Everyone, that is, except for Ranko. At the moment the two first connected, she had sat up straight with a startled look on her face and begun looking around herself in confusion. She had initially thought the shock that went through her was a danger signal, but despite the chaos unfolding while Akane confronted Ryouga out in the yard, there was nothing particularly threatening afoot. A few minutes later, the shock had gone through her again, but this time it was like grabbing hold of a live wire and not being able to let go. Without warning, she leapt to her feet and gasped. 

            She knew this sensation. It was just like when Ranma and Fa Shen had charged her up. The only difference was, where those boosts had been like a sip of water to one dying of thirst, this was like a tsunami turned up to "moon falling into the ocean" levels! Clapping her hands to her mouth and racing for the bathroom, everyone who noticed her instantly read her reaction as "post Akane cooking syndrome" which discouraged all but Kasumi from following. As the eldest Tendo daughter trailed Ranko into the washroom, the sounds emanating from the furo became clear, and she paused thoughtfully. Ignoring Ranko as she burst into the bathing area, Kasumi hummed calmly to herself and proceeded to start doing laundry, casually drenching and throwing a pair of work boots into the dryer before turning it on. The booming clatter of the heavy soles tumbling in the hollow metal drum instantly masked everything short of Armageddon. Starting up an unbalanced load of clothes in the washer, the thumping was joined by almost duck-like "quacking" squeaks. With a prim smile, she hung the occupied sign on the washroom door and returned to the kitchen.

            Ranko, on the other hand, stood in the door way to the furo, mouth open and brain completely disengaged. She had grasped the concept of sex conjuring up additional ki, but the impression she had was akin to building up a static charge walking over carpet with socks on. What she was experiencing now was more like strapping herself to a lightening rod during a hurricane. In the past hour, she had figured out how to make herself operate on the fumes of spiritual energy she had from the curing of her curse and two infusions from this couple. She had estimated that it would take a week of almost constant intercourse for Ranma and Fa Shen to restore her to her normal levels of vitality. Instead, the two sharing her soul had come together like a massive circuit, opening a direct line to the limitless potential of a naked absolute. 

            Ranko's body could hardly absorb the power flowing through her. In the time it took her to slide the shoji closed and take a step toward them, she was overwhelmed, forced to stagger back and slide down the wall into a limp, sitting position. Though her wide eyes drank in the sight of the two making love, she had no real need to look. She could feel everything, as the sensations traveled over the link they had opened to her. Awareness of her own flesh dissolved into the tingle of power crashing through her, her vision washed out as the world suddenly became too bright, and she wondered if her body was fluorescing. It was not hard to picture herself glowing intensely, like a white-hot filament during a power surge. It was no harder to imagine herself exploding like such an abused light bulb. Her consciousness became helplessly trapped in act she was somehow still witnessing, exposed to both sides of the intimate dance. 

            What substituted for thought passed through her mind, an echo of her claim of being both, male and female, tinted by irony as she got a taste of what that really meant. Just as fleetingly, she recalled the warning from Cologne that had barred the copies from indulging their affection for each other, and some instinct unraveled for her what really would have happened if they had. They would have drained her to the killing level Ranma and Fa Shen had reduced her to on awakening, while at the same time opening a link like this, resurrecting her even as they killed her with their passion. 

            Ranko's eyes drifted closed as she fell deeper into their communion, apart and yet an intimate part of their exertions. If they noticed her, a third consciousness forming a bridge to open them to each other, it did not distract them. Three individuals fused into one, a primal trinity in which sex, gender and identity ceased to divide them. The heady mix of passion, pain and pleasure coalesced into a steady, ceaseless impulse that transformed two bodies into one beating heart. A heart that strove to find the perfect rhythm to pump life into Ranko. Where before the flood had smashed into her and rendered her numb, now energy poured through proverbial lips only as fast as she could swallow. Drinking in the gift from Ranma and Fa Shen, sensation and clarity returned to her. Sharp senses focused in and added an outside view to the love making for all three to see. In that moment, Ranko perceived the unique identities of her other selves, the two halves that balanced her own duality, and recognized the connection between them. 

            Together, they were her. Divided, she was them. A singular duality. 

            There were flaws in their trinity: A part of herself that was missing; a possibility in them that was overlooked. The first, she could do nothing about. The second had repaired itself, establishing a path that would exist for as long as they did. It only took a nudge to make it certain, though in the confusion, they might think it was just an orgasm. It did not matter, Ranko grinned. She was full, and as their minds recovered and retreated from this union, they would understand soon enough. With a sigh of ecstasy, Ranko shuddered and then sprawled over on her side, pooling against the wall over the bathroom tiles. In the bath, the lovers went still, melting against each other in exhaustion. In the heat of the moment, time had possessed no meaning, but the chill of the water told a different tale. With a sigh, the couple tried to motivate themselves to clamber out of the water.

            As soon as they pulled a bit apart, they stopped and stared at each other. Ranko chuckled, taking a weary delight in their surprise. Cracking open an eye, she watched as Ranma reached out to Fa Shen, pausing the motion to stare at his hand, before continuing to touch her cheek. She stared back at him, then down the length of her body to where they were still joined. 

            She should not have been surprised. It should have occurred to her, once her perceptions had shifted to include the other perspectives, that it would not be unlikely for her to return to the one she was most familiar with. It disturbed her to have that wall collapse, to have what had been denied to her thrust upon her with no warning. No chance to object to this penetration. With a gentle squeeze, she confirmed her condition, and wondered why she would have objected. It seemed rather silly now. If anything, she dreaded the feeling of being emptied and left alone when he finally moved away. "Is this what it was like, Ranma?" she asked in a soft voice.

            He started and looked down. He chuckled. "Hell of a way to wake up, huh?" He leaned forward, gathering her to him while he rolled over. Having been in this awkward situation himself, he felt it appropriate to offer her the initiative, the choice to remain like this until she wished to disengage. 

            "What are you doing?" she asked. 

            "It's, ah… You'll notice I'm still…"

            "Hard?"

            He nodded. "Yeah. If I pulled out now… I dunno how to explain it… it's a little like having your heart sucked out. Kind of a shock," he shrugged. 

            Fa Shen stared at him. 

            "He would be the one to know," Ranko murmured. Both of them turned to look at her. Neither of them could think of anything to say. The experience had been more than anyone could have expected, and yet it had left very little unexplained. It had merely proven something they had intellectually already known about themselves. For all they appeared to be separate people living separate lives, they were one being. There were probably a whole different set of rules for them, and they had just stumbled onto one of the first. As Fa Shen stirred and gently stroked herself up and down Ranma's manhood, Ranko shuddered. "I wouldn't do that if you wanna stay a girl for a while," she warned.

            "Huh!?" they both yelped. 

            Ranko sighed, "Every curse has it's trigger. Though, it's more the legacy of a curse." 

            "I don't understand," Ranma pouted. 

            Fa Shen was a bit quicker on the uptake. "We're interchangeable!?"

            Ranko propped herself up and looked at them. "Well, yeah. The mirror's power originally comes from the Chaunshontsuniichaun, right? Well, if you salt that curse and that makes it split a cursed person into cursed and uncursed incarnations, whatever the mirror did to split your bodies off from me, and linked my mind to them, set up a path for your minds to travel. I'm the bridge." She pulled her knees in to her chest and stared at the couple over them. It was sort of funny to listen to herself. She could not say she had learned any of this, but her instincts and intuition left no room for argument. She had glimpsed the design in the chaos, and now she just understood it. "Whenever you two, um… get together, it'll drag me in and that'll cause you to flip. Sorry," she apologized.

            Ranma turned his attention back to Fa Shen. "So any time I wanna be a girl…" he began, cautiously.

            "…you have to have sex with her first," Fa Shen finished.

            "And vice versa," Ranko added with an impish grin. 

            "Oh, goddess! Like we need a reason to do THIS again!" Fa Shen moaned. Ranma huffed and proceeded to tickle her exposed ribs. "Hey! Stop that! I'm not in any hurry to be a guy again!"

            "So we'll have to do it twice," Ranma stuck his tongue out at her.

            "Don't tempt me!" she slapped his chest. 

            "Sheesh. I can already hear Nabiki on this one," Ranko suddenly groaned. Straightening and imitating the middle Tendo sister's voice, she piped, "'That's one hell of a time share you have there, Ranma!'" That set the other two off laughing, which in their present positions was a bit ill advised. Ranko squeaked as the friction on their end sent a spark through her. "Oooooooo! I can still feel that! Do I have to remind you that every time you flip, I'm gonna get sucked into it too!?"

            The couple stared at each other, then at Ranko with evil grins. "Oh, that's definitely going to complicate your life! And it's such a fun way to punish you if we have to!" Fa Shen threatened merrily.

            Ranko gasped and lunged forward, ready to drag Fa Shen off of Ranma. Fa Shen just smiled at her and then bounced energetically on Ranma's lap. Ranko's eyes got wide and she doubled over in sympathetic reaction to their sensations.

            "Wow, she really does feel it," Ranma grinned, catching his breath. Tilting his head to look at Ranko, huddled on the tiles, he wondered aloud, "So, what exactly do you feel? You don't feel BOTH of us, do you?"

            Ranko glared up at him. "Great, the one part of being a guy I still have, and it works like this!" she snarled. Taking a calming breath, she sat up and made a correction, "I think I can only feel you two when you are touching. We'll have to test some things to see if I am right. For now, I'm sorta tuned to you guys." She shook her head, remembering the blast of power she got when they first started. Shuddering, she smirked, "You know, if I can learn to deal with the feed back, I would have a LOT of power to work with while you guys are going at it. I thought I was going to blow up for a while there!"

            Again, the couple looked at each other in amazement.

            "I guess Happosai wasn't kidding about what would happen to him if he had sex," Fa Shen mused, getting a very thoughtful look on her face. "We might wanna think very carefully before we do something like this again. I think Ranko could get seriously hurt if we aren't VERY careful."

            Ranko shrugged, "I think if there was a serious danger, the worst would have already happened. Now that we've worked out a rhythm, I don't think we're likely to call up more power than we can use." Grimacing, she commanded, "Now, get out of the bath, it's getting cold in there!"

            "Man, she really does feel it," Ranma grumbled. 

            Fa Shen sighed and forced herself to stand. A brief tremor went through Ranko before she sighed in release. Fa Shen smirked and looked down, "Well, looks like we need to clean the bath now. Maybe give ourselves another rinse too. I promise, we'll behave!" she added quickly as Ranko glared at her. With a shooing motion, she dismissed her twin. "Unless you need to wash up, go outside and see if you're really up to full strength, Ranko."

            Ranko perked up at that suggestion. Crossing her legs, she thought a bath was in order soon, but she could work up an honest sweat first. With her body practically vibrating with renewed vigor, she could hardly wait to take on the world! Flashing a brief victory salute to her other selves, she raced out of the bathroom. Behind her, Ranma and Fa Shen gave each other a measuring look. It went unsaid that learning that Ranko would be affected by anything they did was a thankful and necessary restraint on their behavior. They both would have agreed earlier that sex was addicting. After what they had just experienced, "addicting" took on a whole new world of meaning.  

As Ranko emerged from the bathroom, she returned to confront the aftermath of Akane's little outburst anew. It only took one look at a female Mousse, staring intently at a male Shampoo to remind her of what she had witnessed roughly an hour ago. That suddenly seemed like a lifetime ago. Distracted from her impulse to run outside and rejoice in her restored strength, she searched around for Ryouga, to see how the lost boy was dealing with his transformation. A quick tour of the dojo turned up no sign of him, and Akane, Soun and Genma also proved to be missing. Kasumi was busy in the kitchen preparing snacks with Ukyo's help, which Ranko greedily helped herself to, and Nabiki was stretched out in front of the television. Cologne had been perched on a stool by the phone in the hall, deeply immersed in conversation. From the little bit Ranko listened to, the ancient matriarch had decided to consult the Jusenkyo Guide. After the incident with Pantyhose Taro and the mixed up Saint/Twins water, Nabiki had put his direct number on speed dial. Enough people had brought cursed water to Nerima, and enough people IN Nerima were cursed, that it was just simpler to keep that line of communication open, despite the expense of such calls. 

            Ranko breathed a sigh of relief as she confirmed that no one had twigged to what had happened in the furo, and decided to keep her restoration a secret for the moment, as she sought out Nabiki to find out what had happened to the fathers or Akane and Ryouga. While she approached the mercenary girl, a news flash came on the television, prompting Nabiki to wave Ranko to silence as soon as she opened her mouth to speak. Shrugging, Ranko turned a disinterested eye to the screen, and let her mind wander over stray questions. Something had been nagging at her since Akane splashed the men and turned them all into women. At first, she thought it might have been Ukyo, as she recalled the girl's interruption to find out if she could challenge Ranko as Mousse and "Shun" had. They definitely needed to discuss that soon, but it was not what she seemed to be worrying about. She scratched her head, turning to look at the flipped amazons, and it suddenly struck her that Mousse was looking in her direction, gaze focused idly on the television screen. Ranko's eyes widened as she remembered seeing Mousse reading the back of the Instant Nyanniichaun packet. Then, as now, she was not wearing her glasses. 

            Before she could bring this as yet unnoticed fact to anyone else's attention, Nabiki let out a frustrated groan and trumped Ranko's surprise with a bigger one. "Damn, the old letch is already on the loose again!" the young financial wizard complained, referring to the news story.

            Ranko frowned and tuned in to the part of her mind that had actually been absorbing the sounds and images. The screen had showed a freight shipping yard where a number of familiar looking trucks were parked, as the background for the reporter. In an inset window, there was a little graphic of a package blowing up. Sure enough, the reporter was describing the disruption caused when a parcel waiting to be transferred out of the yard, bound for Ethopia, had unexpectedly exploded. The bizarre event had coincided with a sudden riot as the female workers united to chase off a rampaging, midget that was molesting them. The reporter was concluding his report on these strange, "unrelated" events, "…that happened just hours ago. Investigators are now on the scene, but no comments have been released about the purpose or origin of the bomb. Police have issued a response to the women's' complaints, stating only that this is just the latest in a long string of 'groping sprees' perpetrated by the notorious 'Panty Thief' that has been plaguing the ward of Nerima predominantly this past year."

            Turning off the television in disgust, Nabiki got up, snarling, "Great. Hours. With our luck the old letch is already back here."

            Ranko sighed, rubbing a suddenly aching head, "Well, at least there's a new group of 'girls' around to distract him. Maybe that'll give us the edge we need to kill the old bastard."

            "Yeah, well, three of those 'girls' have already ditched us," Nabiki sighed, measuring Ranko with a sharp eye and wishing once more that the girl was back in top form. Seeing the curious look on her face, Nabiki responded to the obvious question. "No, that's not unexpected where Ryouga's concerned, but it was actually Akane that dragged 'her' off. Our dads, however, took one second to think about Auntie Nodoka coming home and suddenly decided they needed to take a 'training trip' to make up for the 'weakness' of their new forms. We probably won't see them back until those curses have worn off." 

            "Ah, Man! I was really lookin' forward to a little payback for all the crap Pops has given me over the past year!" Ranko groaned in lament, clenching a fist. An aura of intense frustration sprung up around her, causing Nabiki to raise an eyebrow. 

            "I am sure that had something to do with his abrupt departure."

            With a sigh, Ranko idly pulled out one of the packets of Instant Nyanniichaun she had snagged when Ryouga dropped the pile. "Ah, well. I can always get him later if the stuff really wears off," she comforted herself. 

            Nabiki was surprised at that. "Aren't you even a little worried about messing up his curse or getting him stuck as a woman?" she pressed. 

            "Are you kidding? It'd serve the old man right if he got stuck as a girl. Hell, it'd be even better if he turned into a girl panda. Maybe if he gets splashed enough times, he'll end up as both!" Ranko exclaimed in sudden vehemence. 

            "Isn't that a little extreme for just getting you cursed? I mean, you wouldn't even really exist if not for the curse, right?"

            "It's not that," Ranko tried to explain. "I'm happy to be a girl, but I'm still chokin' on all that crap he's always spoutin' about how 'weak and worthless' girls are! Do you have any idea how hard it was wakin' up with all that trash cluttering my mind. Even if I don't really believe it, you can't hear somethin' over and over like that and not get caught up in thinkin' that way!"

            Nabiki pursed her lips, "Oh, so you never meant any of that macho crap you spewed on Akane since you got here?"

            "What!? I didn't know that's not the way guys really talked and acted. I sure as hell saw enough of 'em that did!" Ranko protested. Seeing Nabiki looking unconvinced, Ranko sighed and went on, "Come on, Nabiki! I never thought it really meant anything. Guys insult each other all the time an' nobody really gets all that bent out of shape about it. It shows you're a good sport. I didn't know how much it hurt until I stopped tryin' to be Ranma!"

            Nabiki crossed her arms, "That's not really the point, Ranko. Don't you think there might be a lesson in all of this? Maybe something you'd want to share with Ranma before he gets back his prized 'manhood'?"

            Ranko blinked, and barely kept herself from mentioning that had already happened. Focusing on Nabiki's criticism, she tried to figure out what the other girl was getting at. She could not understand what Nabiki was so upset about. It was not like she had intentionally done anything wrong as Ranma. She had inherited his outlook on life and things, and that was just how he had been brought up, how he had been taught to think and act. Before she got too caught up in thinking how unreasonable it was to hold her responsible for things that happened before she even existed as herself, she got a sudden flash of insight. Nabiki was a smart girl, she did not need to be told why Ranma acted like such an ass. It was kind of obvious, in that light, that what Ranma had been taught was wrong. If there was a mistake that Ranko had committed, it was never questioning what she was taught, never bothering to learn what was right. But, how was she supposed to do that? 

            Nabiki watched as the red-head scowled in intense thought. She smiled, it took a bit to get a Saotome started, but once one of them actually tried to think it was safe to assume she, or he, would eventually figure something out. "Don't strain yourself, just… keep it in mind, okay?"

            Ranko absently nodded, wandering over to the table to sit down while the gears ground in her head. She hardly noticed as Ukyo crept up and joined her. That did not mean that Ranko was insensitive to the weight of attention on her as Ukyo stared at her longingly. It took a while for this to make Ranko uncomfortable enough to take notice of the other girl, and put her deliberations on hold. When she was Ranma, it normally took prolonged exposure to the okonomiyaki chef in one of her more aggressive modes of pursuit to make Ranko feel uncomfortable around her old friend. The biggest part of that had been the ingrained habit of perceiving the girl as a guy. It did not help to know she had always been a girl. Discovering that had done a lot to increase the bond of friendship for Ranma, because to his mind, she too had been "turned" into a girl, remaining a guy at heart. Whenever Ukyo had acted like a girl, it had freaked Ranma out. Ranko was suddenly forced to recognize that Ranma's problem with Ukyo worked quite the opposite for her. 

            Ranko frowned, as she caught her own reaction to Ukyo. Contrary to the sudden realization that she could take her old friend seriously as a suitor, where Ranma never could have—at least until Ryouga obliterated the notion that the manly martial artist could never truly love another guy—Ranko forced herself to realize it was a dangerous trap. Ranko had predicted what would happen to the relationship between the two boys once Ranma realized he did not have to be a girl. The reasons for that prediction still held true and spelled nothing but misery for Ranma and Ryouga as their love conflicted with their own identities. The same misery lay in store for Ranko and Ukyo, if the two allowed themselves to become involved in a relationship. It did not matter that Ukyo was willing to consider becoming male to be with Ranko. Ranko was certainly more in tune with her masculinity, and knew she could happily live with an alternate male form. It did not change the fact that she was a girl in her own mind, and that would always be more important to her. 

            Ranma had never really understood the suffering that went with Ukyo's forced existence as a boy, but Ranko was painfully aware of it. There was no question her best friend really was a girl at heart, and that her masquerade had deeply hurt her. However well either of them might be able to live with a male form, and however much that made a physical relationship entirely feasible, it did not change the fact that both of them were men in the other's eyes. Therein lay the whole problem. As she felt herself respond to the attention of a boy she genuinely loved, recognized that she actually wanted him, wanted to be "in love" with him, there was a jarring realization that "he" did not really exist. She was imposing her own desires on her friend. What kind of hell would it be to be in a relationship where they were both constantly, subtly pressuring each other to be men? How long would it take for that to fuel resentment over the demand to be something they were not?

            Ranko gulped as all this flashed through her mind. If she had not already been worrying about this for Ranma's sake, and if the situation were not so similar between couples and the individuals that made them up, she doubted she would have really seen this. It was so easy to give in to the temptation that Ukyo offered, to make up for the one regret she had as Ranma, and make her old friend happy by returning the affection she had lavished on him. On the surface it seemed such a perfect solution, but like any wondrous pipe dream embraced by her father, it was rotten at the core. 

            Ukyo, who had been spell bound watching Ranko's expression shift from intense thought to amorous regard for herself, now tensed as the other girl's face fell into dejection. Alarmed, she finally spoke, "What's wrong, Ran-chan?"

            Rather than try to put her immediate thoughts into words, Ranko collected her wits and looked for a way to introduce Ukyo to her concerns. Clearing her throat, she responded tightly, "I can't believe you'd seriously think of turning yourself into a guy so you could challenge me, Ukyo."

            While Ranko had not put any strong disapproval into her voice, the use of the okonomiyaki chef's given name stressed that she was not pleased. Ukyo frowned in irritation, unwittingly repeating familiar old phrases of devotion. "It's the least I would do to be with the man I love!" she instantly retorted. "You don't seriously think I'd just lie down and let Mousse or Shampoo get their greedy paws on you, do you?"

            Ranko glared, "Do I look like a man to you!? If it's a man you love, you better take another look at Ranma, because it's not really me you love!" 

            Ukyo flinched and looked hurt, "Ranko… I… Please, I'm not just… this isn't just about the engagement. Besides, neither one of you is a man at the moment! It was just an expression. Can't you believe that my feelings are real, and that they are for you? And, it is so wrong to call you a man? Can you seriously tell me you don't want to be one, that you won't be right beside Ranma getting a nanniichaun curse just as soon as you can?"

            Ranko took a calming breath. "You don't understand. Being male is not the same thing as being a man, Ukyo. I'm used to being male, I am used to having a different body, different strengths and weaknesses, and it hurts not having it anymore. It's like part of me has been amputated, and I can't live with the idea of being crippled like that!" Ranko stormed with growing intensity. Shaking her head, trying to keep from losing her temper, she toned herself down a notch and continued. "I'm not tryin' to say you don't feel love, it's just… no matter what I look like, I'm not going to be a man. I'm not going to be what you want me to be. It's bad enough that's gotta hurt you, but that's nothing compared to the suffering you'll get if you try to become a man for me!"

            Ukyo gripped the edge of the table and grit her teeth, straining to deal with the pain of those words. "How else am I supposed to show you that I really do love you!?" she demanded with a clenched jaw. "Do you think I never thought about what it would be like to marry you with the curse!? Do you think all I care about is what body you have!? If all that mattered to me was what I THOUGHT you were, don't you think I would have switched to the copy-Ranma? Don't you think I'd be chasing THAT Ranma!?" she demanded pointing to Fa Shen as she and Ranma wandered out of the bath along the engawa. 

            Ranma paused and looked at Ranko. "Didn't you tell her?"

            Ranko waved the couple off with a meaningful look, urging them to make themselves scarce, and indirectly to keep their mouths shut about that for the moment. Shrugging, the pair moved on and Ranko turned back to Ukyo. "What I think," she responded, as the girl waited, "is that it would be a terrible mistake for you to go and get yourself cursed! You won't like it, Ukyo! Take a look at Mousse, or Sha… Shun! Take it from me! You'll never be normal again! You'll be a freak, an outcast! You will never be free of it! Hell, I got cured, but I'm still not free of it!"

            "But if I am with you, that won't matter!"

            "Yeah, well, I can't promise I can be with you!" Ranko pointed out. "I've also got Mousse, Shun… or Shampoo… and maybe Ryouga makin' the same claims you wanna make! I've got so many people tryin' to marry me my head is spinning! Besides, it's just not worth it for you to play by the amazon's rules! Their way, it's the one who can defeat or kill all the others and defeat me that gets to be my husband! Are you willing to do all that, and convince the amazons that you're really a man, just for the chance to be with me even if we can't love each other!?"

            "I'll do whatever it takes," Ukyo promised. At the same time, she was getting that Ranko was actually concerned for her, for what the curse would do to her. With a heavy sigh, she gestured to herself, "Look at me. I know it's got to be pretty devastating to live with changing sexes back and forth, but can you honestly think of another girl, besides yourself, who is more prepared than me to actually become a man? I've been living as a boy for most of my life. Legally, I AM a boy!"

            Ranko clammed up at that. 

            "As for having to fight everyone else to fight for you, if I could get you or Ranma, or even Fa Shen, to train me, I could beat Shampoo and Mousse. I might never be able to beat you, but… would it kill you to lose to someone you actually wanted to marry?" she demanded plaintively. Then it occurred to her who she was arguing with, and a piercing dread shot through her. Clutching her throat, she asked, "Is… are you… would it be so hard to love me, Ranko?"

            Ranko watched the tears form in her old friend's eyes, and her heart wrenched. This was something she was simply not equipped to deal with. She meant to talk some sense into her friend, not hurt her like this. Reaching out and putting on a cheerful smile, she soothed, "Hey, hey! Don't cry! It… it's not that, Ucchan! I'm just trying to keep you from getting hurt! Don't you understand? I'm so used to thinking you're a guy that if you got cursed… I… it would be really hard not to treat you like a guy! It wouldn't be fair to you! I don't want you trying to be something you're not for me!"

            That blasted through Ukyo's grief like a burst of sunlight, banishing the storm to reveal paradise. Lunging forward, she swept the smaller girl into a tight embrace, "Oh! Ran-chan! You really do care!" Crushing Ranko in her arms, holding onto the one she loved for all she was worth, Ukyo lost herself in the renewal of her hope, shrugging off the fear and despair that had been growing through this conversation. After a moment, Ranko's madly waving arms began to grow limp and the brunette finally realized what Ranko was croaking.

            "A-air… c-can't b-br-breathe…!"

            Relaxing her grip, she held Ranko at arms length and looked into her eyes. "Oh, Ranko! I understand what you are saying, and I want you to know I love YOU! Boy, girl, it doesn't really matter as long as I can be with you! I'd be happy to be a guy for you if that's what you really want!"

            Ranko sagged, "But that's just it. I want you to be happy, and you won't be if you're forced to be a man. You can't argue with me, 'cuz I've already been there! You're a girl, Ucchan, no matter how hard that is for me to really believe." Taking a deep breath, she pushed on, "The only way we could be together without destroying each other is if neither of us gets cursed. It's the only way to avoid living a lie."

            Ukyo paused, hugging the girl close again as her words echoed through her. She asked herself what that would be like, being with Ranko, but never being with a man. There would be no marriage, no husband, no father of and for her children, just two individuals who had given up almost everything to be together. Friends and lovers. Ukyo closed her eyes and tried to tell herself that would be enough. Just having Ranko would be enough. It would certainly be a good beginning! It was not like Jusenkyo was going anywhere! There was always the chance that they would mature, get over their fears and move on to building a family!

            Ukyo tightened her hands into fists. It had not taken her a minute to begin fantasizing about them trying to be men for each other. It was obviously something they would need to feel whole and happy. But did it have to be a disaster? Ukyo had no real desire to force Ranko into something she did not want. She might fight to keep from losing her, but she could not bear thinking she had given Ranko no choice. It hurt to think Ranko, like Ranma, could never choose her, but the sacrifice Ranko was trying to save Ukyo from making would not even be a sacrifice if not for the impulse she, as Ranma, had given Ukyo, to reclaim her womanhood. If she had not tracked down the Saotomes, she would still be living as a man, and if she had discovered the nanniichaun, she would have jumped into it eagerly to cement the life she had chosen when she renounced her sex. 

            "What if it's not all a lie?" Ukyo asked quietly. "Except as Ranma's wife, I will never be allowed to return to being a woman. Otherwise, I remain my father's son, bound to avenge the insult brought on my family by yours. It might not be perfect, but I'd rather be your husband, the father of your children and a man in my own right than a bitter assassin with no true place in the world but to see that you and all you hold dear are reduced to smoldering ashes. Our marriage could at least win peace for our families."

            Ranko sighed. "You have no idea, Ukyo. It's so much more than a change of clothes and attitude. You already know what it's like to be seen by the world as a man, I can't tell you anything new about that, but you don't know what it's like on the inside, when your soul doesn't fit your body."

            Ukyo shook her head. "I'd never go so far as to lock myself in that form. I would always have the freedom to get away from it for a while. If you were cursed too, neither of us would have to truly suffer. All you are really asking is for us to love each other for who we are, to never look just at the surface, or take each other for granted. I would ask no less in return." 

            Ranko pulled back, studying her friend intently. If there was ever a true rival for the feelings she felt for Akane and Ryouga, it was Ukyo. Even Ranma would bow to those feelings, once the constraints of gender were removed. It was so incredibly tempting, and her conscience labored to sustain it's protests. What good would it do her to deny her own feelings if she could not protect Ukyo from the sacrifice she wanted to make. Rather than speak, she looked away into the yard where Ranma and Fa Shen were warming up to begin sparring. Ranko let her mind idle, resisting the urge to rush out and join them, as she let her concerns for Ukyo take precedence. 

            Before she could make much progress, she noticed Mousse storm through the yard, pursued by a nagging Shun. Ranko frowned, noticing the raised tones, as Shun insisted they had to fight to determine who would face Ranko first in challenge. Ranko felt a thrill go up her spine as Mousse whipped around and fixed the former Shampoo with a sharp glare. For whatever reason, there was no problem with Mousse's eyesight in this form, and apparently Shun was too preoccupied to have noticed. Ranko frowned, sensing where this was about to go, and noticing the diminutive form of Cologne marching out onto the engawa to see what was happening. 

            Clearing her throat, Ranko asked nervously, "Um, Hey, Cologne? Is Mousse considered a guy or a girl right now? You know, as far as the tribe is concerned?"

            Cologne looked over her shoulder at Ranko and frowned. "I would think you should know that the distinction is more spiritual than physical, Ranko. If this form becomes permanent, and he chooses to accept that, in spirit, he becomes a woman and is recognized by the tribe as such."

            Ranko frowned more deeply, her eyes still focused on Mousse going into a defensive posture, awaiting Shun's attack. "Uh, that's sort of what I thought. So, if he thinks he's trapped that way right now, and finds a way to come to terms with it, that'd make him a girl until he discovered he could change back, right?"

            "Oh, no doubt, child. But I would not worry, if he's ready to fight Shun over his claim to you, I am sure he's thinking very much as a man at the moment," Cologne judged, as the flipped amazons began their fight.

            Ranko pulled herself out of Ukyo's arms and hurried to the engawa. "Aren't you missin' something, old woman?" she challenged taking a good look at the expression on Mousse's face. It was a fighting grimace, but it burned with a kind of joy too profound for mere combat. "I mean, he is fighting the person he loves, and sh… ah, he is fighting in the spirit of a man."

            Cologne turned once more from the yard to stare at Ranko. Gasping and whipping around to stare at Mousse, she challenged. "He wouldn't…" To all appearances, Mousse was fighting to her full ability, admirably compensating for the change in anatomy and stature, losing nothing to diminished reach thanks to her style of combat. It was an impressive performance, goading Shun to equal heights of skill and proficiency. No one could claim Mousse intended to take a fall. Not that it mattered. Shampoo had obviously paid close attention to Mousse's fights with Ranma, and Shun was putting that experience to work. Shampoo had always been an agile and powerful fighter, and the man who replaced her lost nothing of the former and gained a great deal of the latter through his transformation. Whirling and bashing his way through Mousse's arsenal, Shun pressed the girl hard. 

            "So, you aren't gonna try and stop them?" Ranko probed casually.

            "It is a challenge fight. No one may interfere," Cologne said sadly. She strained to believe that Mousse would not snatch victory from defeat, but even if she did not intend to lose, she had never been in the habit of fighting Shampoo, much less winning. With the roles reversed, the natural advantage the master of hidden weapons held over his beloved had suddenly been overturned. In his present form, it was all too likely she could not succeed. 

            With a growing smirk, Ranko found herself silently cheering Shun on. 

            In a burst of fury, Shun closed, casually deflecting or shrugging off Mousse's attacks with the confidence of certain victory. At close range, Shun smashed the girl's defenses, and crashed over her in a devastating series of kicks. Mousse gritted her teeth, valiantly blocking the hard strikes, but inevitably, one foot lashed up under her chin, sending her flying over the compound wall. Shun launched herself after, prompting the witnesses to bound across the yard and perch atop the perimeter wall to watch as Shun descended, planting a knee square in the girl's solar plexus. The air rushed from her lungs in a loud huff, and her eyes rolled back in her head. 

            Shun picked himself up and stared down at her with a smug look of success. He kept his eyes on her until he was satisfied she was truly out of the fight. "Stupid Mousse. Should know no can win against Sha… Shun." Flipping his hair out of the way, he turned and looked up at the watchers. Spotting Ranko, he smiled and prepared to announce the primacy of his challenge when Mousse dragged herself to her feet and clapped a hand on his shoulder. Shun whipped around, ready to resume the battle, but paused at the sight of blood flowing copiously out of her mouth and down her chin. "Mousse! You no keep fighting! You badly hurt!" he cried in sudden concern, catching her in his arms as she collapsed against him. 

            Mousse nodded, gasping for breath and spitting blood to the side. Meeting Shun's eyes, Mousse sighed and announced, "You win." Without warning, though by this point several people expected it, she adhered her body to his in a classic amazon glomp and pressed her mouth over his. Shun stiffened in shock, brain suddenly overwhelmed by the realization of what had just happened. Ranma, who had been as surprised as Shun, fell off the top of the wall into the street next to the switched couple. Shun was still transfixed when Mousse pulled back and looked into his eyes adoringly and said, "Wo Ai Ni, Airen."

            Fa Shen turned to Ranko and smiled, "Well, I guess that takes care of the challenges from those two. Go get the bride before her husband kills her. I'll speak to Kasumi about the wedding feast." Ranko stared at her a moment, but caught sight of Shun about to wrap his hands around Mousse's throat and jumped in to separate them. Ranma bounced up and helped by restraining Shun, dragging him off to "sympathize" with him over the shock of "winning" an amazon bride. Ranko suppressed her giggles, wishing she could pay more attention to Ranma's little revenge on Shampoo, and took a good look at Mousse. She quickly determined that the bleeding was not from internal injuries. That last kick to the chin had caused Mousse to bite deeply into her tongue. Picking her up and taking to the roofs, Ranko carried her towards Tofu's clinic, deciding a professional should determine if that was the worst of her injuries. Besides, she was grateful for an excuse to really stretch her legs!


	41. With This Spring, I Thee Bed!

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Forty-One: With This Spring, I Thee Bed!

Before Ranko could reach Tofu's clinic, Fa Shen caught up to her and Mousse. Fa Shen had been stopped short of the kitchen by Cologne, who had noticed Ranko's recovery and decided to ask "Ranma" if she was prepared for her mother to learn what had happened when Ranko showed up at the clinic. Fa Shen and Ranma had both picked up the hint from Ranko to keep her recovery a secret for the moment, including what had happened to Ranma and Fa Shen in the process. Dropping the planning for a celebration for Mousse and Shun's union on Nabiki, Fa Shen had raced after Ranko, praying she reached her in time. Fortunately, Mousse had convinced Ranko that she was not severely injured and the pair had come down from the rooftops to walk along the side walk while they talked about what had happened. They were both surprised when Fa Shen dropped in on them, and Mousse cast suspicious looks in their direction when Fa Shen took Ranko aside to pass on the warning. Ranko had completely forgotten that Nodoka had gone with Tofu to the clinic to learn about Ranko's former curse. 

            "You don't think she's still there, do you?" Ranko challenged. 

            Fa Shen shrugged. "I don't know. She didn't come back to the dojo, though. I know it's been a couple of hours, but I am sure she had a lot of questions. The point is," she emphasized, "do you want to take a chance on letting her find out what's happened now?"

            Ranko crossed her arms and shifted from foot to foot, while she looked down in thought. Some instinct for self preservation had prompted her to keep what happened in the furo a secret for the moment, while she tried to decide how much should be revealed to the others. It was not hard to imagine how Nodoka would react if she learned about the legacy of the curse, and how it was discovered. Anyone would find the bond between Ranma and Fa Shen perverse, but Nodoka was almost certain to find it incestuous. No one had really said anything, but it seemed obvious that the simplest way to deal with Fa Shen's presence was to think of her as Ranma and Ranko's sister. Fa Shen had no other family, and it was becoming obvious that Ranma and Ranko really could not be separated from her. 

            Looking up, Ranko commented, "I don't like the idea of hiding things from her immediately after clearing up everything else. She won't like the idea of you two having sex together, but it does save you from having to get cursed like me. If we hide the truth, and you two keep trading places, she'll eventually figure it out. Do you think that's a good idea?"

            "I don't know. It would probably be easier if we got cursed anyway, instead of swapping bodies. I can't think of any way that won't cause problems unless Ranma and I were married to each other. I'm not really that comfortable with the idea of him sleeping with other men using my body," Fa Shen admitted, being painfully conscious of the fact that her current body had been with Ryouga. It left her with the feeling that it was not really her body. 

            "I didn't think of that," Ranko admitted. 

            Fa Shen hugged herself, rubbing her shoulders. "Maybe we should let Mousse see the doctor alone and go back to talk about this with Ranma. He and I need to figure out if we can live with things this way," Fa Shen suggested. 

            Ranko nodded, and went over to Mousse, "Hey, Mousse. I need to go back to the dojo and talk to Ranma and Fa Shen about something before I see my Mom again. Are you okay to see Tofu on your own?"

            "I told you before I was fine. It's okay, Ranko."

            With that assurance, Mousse continued down the street leaving Ranko and Fa Shen to watch her retreating form. When she turned a corner, the twin girls exchanged a look and sped back to the dojo. It did not take long to track Ranma down and pry him away from a fuming Shun. From his scathing comments, it seemed clear that Shun thought the boy was Fa Shen acting like Ranma to exact a little revenge for his transformation. Once the three teens were alone in the dojo, Ranko and Fa Shen pounded Ranma on the head a few times for thoughtlessly risking their new secret. 

            "Do you want people to know you can trade places by having sex!?" Ranko growled, before outlining the brief conversation she had with Fa Shen on the sidewalk. Ranma suggested just telling their mother that it had been him who had been turned into a guy, causing Ranko to roll her eyes. "That would still force us to tell everyone else, so they didn't tell her the truth."

            "The truth about what?" a familiar, ancient voice intruded. The trio almost jumped out of their skins before turning around and looking down at Cologne. She smiled, sensing that the three were talking about Ranko's restoration. "Surely you didn't think I would not notice that Ranko was back to full strength, children?" she reprimanded them. Unfortunately, it was obvious that there was something she did not know. Having walked in on the last thing Ranko said, she was not aware of what the three were conspiring to keep secret. Seeing them clam up, Cologne sighed. "Obviously, you are not just worried about Nodoka learning that the two of you had sex. Since I am surprised to see Ranko has recovered so quickly, I assume that something unexpected has happened."

            "You could say that," Ranma quipped, trying to look nonchalant. 

            Cologne nodded. "I doubt that whatever it was will remain secret for very long, but if you do not wish to confide in me, then I will let it go for now and focus on what I came in here to speak with you all about."

            This roused their curiosity, even as they breathed a sigh of relief at the temporary reprieve. Taking the lead, Ranko asked, "I guess this has to do with what you learned from the Guide, right?"

            Cologne nodded once again. "I learned some things that are concerning for everyone who has been transformed today, but the worst news falls on Fa Shen, I am afraid," she announced solemnly. Fa Shen was hard pressed to contain her reaction, which would have betrayed her current position. 

            Again, Ranko prompted the elder to continue. "What is it?"

            "It is mostly what I suspected when I read the back of the Instant Nyanniichaun packet," Cologne informed them. "As you all know, the instant curses are usually good one time only. They work the same as genuine curses, imprinting the transformation upon the spirit of the subject and using their ki to power it. The difference is that the instant lacks the raw power to brand the spirit and leave a permanent impression. If you think of it as a tattoo, of sorts, the instant is just painted on the surface while a genuine curse is stained under the skin. Under normal circumstances, no one can remain in the cursed state long enough, with the instant version, for the false tattoo to rub off. Unless, of course, the curse is locked." 

            The trio exchanged looks, and Ranma spoke up. "Wouldn't you just change back to normal when the instant curse wore off?"

            "You are forgetting how the curse works," Cologne asserted. "If you recall, the curse destroys the original form, storing the memory of it in the infected part of the spirit. If the curse breaks down, the form it is holding becomes lost with it. For a normal person, the danger of locking the instant curse is the risk of being permanently transformed. For a cursed person, the danger is posed by what happens when the instant interacts with their curse. Because the water Akane threw was cold, the original curses of Mousse, Ryouga and Genma were activated. As always, the transformations were almost instantaneous. The human eye is not quick enough to catch where those transformations ended and where the instant curse activated on their cursed forms and took over. So, at present, the forms of their real curses have been shifted into the fabric of the temporary curses."

            "So, they might end up with curses like mine?" Ranko frowned.

            "If the temporary curse has fully disintegrated before the lock wears off, then yes. If, instead, the lock wears off while the temporary curse is breaking up, part of the original curse will become mixed up with the instant cursed form when they change back to normal." Cologne turned to Ranma, still unaware that he was not Fa Shen, "In your case, the danger is greatest because the lock on your form will not wear off on it's own. If you are not unlocked within a week, this will become your permanent form."

            "Will he be able to get cursed again, or would the chisuiiton still prevent that?" Fa Shen asked hastily.

            "That is hard to say," Cologne admitted. "I know an instant curse can work over a chisuiiton lock, because it's just on the surface, but it still might be necessary to use the Kaisuifuu on Fa Shen before she will be able to acquire a Nyanniichaun curse. In any case, I have asked the Guide to contact Herb and have him meet us at Jusenkyo. We cannot wait for Mousse to regain his duck form to fly us there in the trap mirror. We need to leave at once if we are to get there in time to help Fa Shen get back to normal."

            The three teens exchanged looks and then asked Cologne to let them speak in private. Sensing how troubled they were, Cologne did not protest, and excused herself, saying she would see to it they were not disturbed until they came out of the dojo. When she was out of earshot, Fa Shen turned to Ranma and quickly explained her unease in her present body. 

            "I know it sounds stupid, but this doesn't feel like my body. I mean, how does it make you feel to know the body you are in was with Shampoo?" she pointed out, blushing mightily. 

            Ranma twitched and squirmed in discomfort. "Why did you have to remind me?" he complained. The notion of sex with Shampoo did not repulse him on a physical level. It was cementing a relationship with her that seemed most disturbing, and that had not really happened for Fa Shen. It certainly did not tie Ramna to Shampoo. All the same, a body had it's own memories and history. It was somewhat unsettling to know that she could remember having sex with him, but he not remember having sex with her. At least with Copy-Ranko and Ryouga, he could remember the parts he had not actually been there for. Even the girl's spirit had become a part of him, since he claimed the ki she possessed when he woke up and drained the rest of his share from Ranko. Shrugging, he added, "I admit, it's kinda creepy, but, if you take this body back and unlock the curse, we'll both go back to being stuck as girls and we won't be able to change bodies anymore."

            "I'll be honest, I'm not sure I want to be trading bodies like that. I'm not sure I like what we have to do to do that," Fa Shen complained uneasily. That was not entirely correct. She enjoyed what they had to do, but it seriously complicated things. When she thought of sharing their bodies for the rest of their lives, it did not seem possible for them to have separate lives. Or relationships outside of their own. If Ranma was not a male version of herself, something like this would force her to marry him. On a deep level, she already felt like she had. She could not say that to him. So she had to put it another way quickly, before he took what she just said as a rejection. "I mean, it's not that bad if we're just sleeping with each other. I don't mind sharing myself with you. I just don't like the idea of you sharing 'me' with anyone else, if you get my meaning."

            "You wouldn't want me to sleep with other guys, like Ryouga."

            "I'm sorry," Fa Shen looked down. "When I think about this with other people involved, I don't really like it. It would be better, if you wanted to be free to do what you want as both a boy and a girl, to just get a curse and master it. At least that way, whatever you did, it would be in your own body."

            "Fa Shen, do you even want to be a boy, I mean, even part time?"

            "I don't know, Ranko. To be honest, the only interest I have in it is for the sex. It's the only thing I'd really have to be a boy for. If I had a male curse, I'd probably make more use of it, but the only thing that makes getting a curse tempting is being able to have sex that way."

            Ranma nodded in silent agreement. There were a lot of things he liked about being a girl, but the only thing that would be impossible to give up was the possibility of having sex as one. Unlike Fa Shen, however, his attachment to his female self was profoundly reinforced by his feelings for Ryouga. If all he had was a desire to have sex as a girl, just the process of trading bodies would satisfy him. Unfortunately, he wanted more than that. Fa Shen was not wrong to fear that Ranma would use her body to continue a physical relationship with Ryouga, because he loved the lost boy. 

            "Well, I guess we're off to China, then," Ranko announced. At least part of Ranma's idea would still work. Checking her pocket, she confirmed that she still had the compact. Nodoka had given it back to her before leaving the Tendo home. They could purchase one plane ticket for whoever carried the compact, and the rest could ride it out in the mirror. It would still take most of a week for them to reach Jusenkyo, once they arrived in China. "I'll go talk to Nabiki about getting a plane ticket, and we can decide who is going to carry the mirror."

            "I'd better call Ryouga and Akane and have them come back here. I doubt we can find Pops and Mr. Tendo fast enough, but I know everyone else will want to come along in case they need to use the springs to straighten out their curses," Ranma declared, heading to the door of the dojo.

            "When you are done, I think we should switch back, Ranma," Fa Shen caught him by the shoulder. "It will be easier to hide our secret if we are who everyone thinks we are."

            Ranko piped up, "If you're going to do that, you might as well do it now, since we have some privacy." She pulled out the compact and waved it for them to see. "If anyone gets past Cologne, I'll be the only one here in the dojo, and you two will be safe in the mirror. It will give me a chance to work on overcoming the feedback. If I can fight while you two are busy, your bond could still be useful as a secret weapon." Ranma and Fa Shen saw no reason to argue with her. 

In the wash area of the Hibiki furo, Akane Tendo sat naked before a bucket of water and tried to control her breathing. Every step she had taken on the path to this moment of truth had tested her nerve and determination to the limit. The immensity of what she had decided to do had bled her legendary temper to death, starting from the moment she grabbed Ryouga by the hand and began to lead her home. With her conscience nagging her, she was tempted to let Ryouga off the hook, but even if she found she could not force the recently made girl have sex and still be able to live with herself, she had pried into her new rivals doubts and uncertainties about being a girl for Ranma sake. It had not been hard to lead Ryouga into convincing herself she needed to participate in this experiment. Akane further salved her guilt by doing everything she could to help put Ryouga at ease with her new body, and forgiving her for P-Chan's betrayal. It was sort of funny how that worked out in Akane's mind; since the greater trust had been invested in the little black pig, the majority of her hatred fixated on P-Chan. P-Chan's association with Ryouga roused enough anger to warrant severe bodily harm, while the new face of a female Ryouga was enough to completely diffuse Akane's wrath. 

            It had actually been fun to spend time with female Ryouga, helping her with feminine things. Fortunately, they had made it to the Hibiki home before Ryouga's bladder burst. That scene had made Akane wonder how Ranma had survived his first week as a girl with just Genma to rely on. Akane had spent the next half hour or so helping Ryouga assemble a wardrobe for his female form from clothes he had outgrown in junior high. They had talked about their plans—once she had infected Ryouga with her own fears, the sexual experiment had become "their" plan—and agreed to take it one step at a time. They had both been sweating and breathing heavily in nervousness by the time Akane forced herself to take her first big step. 

            Ryouga was sitting across from Akane, still troubled by the youngest Tendo's intention of locking herself in male form with water proof soap. Because she only had one packet of Instant Nanniichaun, Akane had felt it was necessary, but Ryouga had argued against it. Not even knowing of the danger it posed, since they knew nothing about what Cologne had learned, Ryouga sensed Akane's family would probably kill her for letting Akane turn herself into a boy for a whole week. Of course, the rest of their plans were enough to get them both in serious trouble anyway. Unable to discourage Akane, Ryouga had insisted on being there when she changed, in case the shock caused Akane to stumble around, fall into the furo and drown. Considering what Akane planned to do with Ryouga's nubile young body, she had refused to hear any complaints about seeing Akane naked again. 

            "Are you really sure you want to do this?" Ryouga asked once more, when several long minutes had passed and Akane had not moved. 

            Akane looked up at Ryouga, a slightly ill and terrified look on her face. "I have to. I just… everyone else got cursed by accident. I don't think anyone's tried to do this to themselves on purpose," Akane grumbled, looking down into the bucket. The bar of water proof soap lay at the bottom of the bucket, from when she filled it up. The instant powder was already mixed into the soapy water. All she had to do was tip it over her head, just like a normal bath, and it would all be over. She would scrub herself down with the bar of soap, for good measure, and finally know what Ranma, Shampoo and all the others did. 

            "Do you want me to do it?" Ryouga prompted. The waiting was beginning to shatter her nerve, and the itching in her nose warned of an impending nosebleed. The fear of what they planned had suppressed her naughty thoughts, but the longer she looked at Akane in the nude, the harder it was to keep her thoughts from straying and making her blood pressure rise. 

            Akane shook her head. Gritting her teeth, she whispered a silent prayer and doused herself in one motion. Her eyes closed as the chill water poured over her head and caused her entire body to tingle with numbness. The sensation only lasted an instant, but it was enough to make her think several times about opening her eyes. When she did, it was to stare over at Ryouga as the girl crashed to the floor in shock. Her eyes were instantly captured by the full length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. The boy looking back at her was pale with fear. 

            "Ohgod!" Akane gasped, and flinched as he saw his reflection's lips move in synch with the low voice that escaped his throat. He stood up on shaking legs to study himself in all his glory in the glass. His first thought was how sexy he looked, and that provoked an instant response from down under. Blood rushed from Akane's brain, causing the new bit of flesh to thicken and strain upwards. As blood geysered from Akane's nose, he keeled over backwards, unconscious.  

            "Akane!" Ryouga quickly roused herself and raced forward to catch the boy, and keep him from dashing his brains out on the edge of the furo. Ryouga, long used to marveling at the androgynous beauty of Akane, was almost breathless at the sight of the Adonis in her arms. Akane had always been muscular—earning her both Ranma's taunts and silent admiration. The boy in Ryouga's grip was, as the saying went, ripped. Not grotesquely muscled, but every muscle was perfectly defined. Hastily shifting the boy's weight, to lay him out on the tile floor, one of the questions Ryouga had fretted over was instantly answered. "I can definitely be attracted to a guy," she muttered, backing off with trembling limbs. 

            While she waited for Akane to recover, she silently debated her discovery. She thought back, half afraid of finding that her attraction was more than a product of her present form and her long crush on Akane. As a man, Ryouga certainly had been able to recognize masculine beauty. There were a number of times when Ranma and Ryouga had bathed together in junior high. That had been one of the perks of being Ryouga's friend, when Ranma and his father camped in a vacant lot during their stay in Ryouga's neighborhood. They were supposed to live in a grounds house where Genma was working for their keep, but of course Genma had never done any of the work so they were quickly out on the street. The end result was that Ryouga had seen Ranma in all his glory many times back then. With a tortured sigh, Ryouga admitted that she had found the other boy attractive, and, as a boy at the time, suppressed his reaction. 

            "But I'm not gay," she whimpered. 

            Akane heard that and cracked an eye. Before he could stop himself, his hands had moved to cover himself, leaving himself with a handful of something, but not where he expected. Sitting up, hands flying out as if they had grabbed onto hot coals, he stared down into his lap and began to hyperventilate. 

            In an instant, Ryouga was at his side, placing warm, relaxing hands on his shoulders and looking into his eyes, "Take it easy. Breathe in. Hold it… okay, let it out. That's good. Take another deep breath, just keep looking in my eyes." She continued with this until Akane had calmed down. She then shifted her attention to massaging his arms and legs, helping Akane relax into her new form by stimulating the muscles. "I know this is really weird, but trust me, it's nothing like turning into an animal. Not that much is different. If you think you are ready for it, you should try standing up and walking around. Let's get out of here and get you into some clothes, okay?"

            Akane was grateful for the suggestion. If he did not get dressed, he would be tempted to explore, and that might not be a good idea at the moment. Only Ryouga's calming touch and soothing voice had kept him from completely losing it, and even then there was a voice in his head screaming at him for his stupidity. "Thanks, Ryouga," he murmured, trying to keep his voice to a whisper to disguise the change in pitch. 

            "It's not a problem, Akane. I wish you didn't have to do this, but… I understand. I'll help you though it, same as you did for me," she promised, offering a hand to the boy to help him stand up. Once Akane was on his feet, Ryouga grabbed a towel, quickly sluicing the remaining moisture off of his form and tying it around his waist. 

            "Oh! Wait! I have to use the soap, so this doesn't wash off!"

            "Are you sure you want to do that? I mean, you can't avoid…" Ryouga trailed off. Akane met her eyes, and shook his head. Ryouga sighed and led him over to the bath stool. "Alright then. I'll wait over by the door for you to finish."

            Akane nodded and reached for the soap and another bucket of water. With grim determination, he lathered his body, enlisting some more help from Ryouga to wash his back. In spite of his dread, he paid careful attention to his private region, taking the opportunity to get acquainted with his manhood. Unfortunately, Ranma had never confided the trouble he had with his first bath, and to Ryouga's shock, Akane proved just as susceptible. When Akane finished and looked up in a pleasure induced haze, he saw Ryouga plastered with her back to the wall gnawing on her fist. 

            Without even thinking, Akane beaned Ryouga on the head with the soap. "What is it with you and watching!?" he shouted, as Ryouga covered her head and finally looked away. Grumbling, he turned his back to her and proceeded to rinse himself off. By this time, a chill had set in, so he climbed into the furo. Akane settled back and closed his eyes, soaking in the heat. A few moments later, he heard a bath stool shift under Ryouga's weight and a tap open to fill a wash bucket. Opening his eyes, he noticed that Ryouga had stripped down and fetched a different bar of soap. "What do you think you are doing?"

            Ryouga looked over her shoulder. "I need a bath too, so I might as well get it out of my system," she stated. It had not occurred to her, until Akane had become engrossed, what would happen the first time she bathed. Now, it seemed obvious, and given her past history with Akane, she had no business trying to hide her own immodest behavior. "I can't really complain if you want to watch. I don't really have the right to hide anything from you, do I?"

            Akane looked down into the water. It was penetrating that the qualities he had liked in Ryouga had been genuine. The lost "boy" was just as bad as Ranma in a lot of ways, a true social moron, but there was a sense of honor there. Gently caressing what this experiment had gifted him with, he replied, "I guess I don't have the right to call anyone else a pervert anymore. I… I'll watch… if you want me to."

            Ryouga considered that, and then turned around on the stool to face the boy. With an impish, if self-conscious smile, she picked up the soap and did her best to proceed as naturally as possible. "Maybe you should. You might want to know if you find girls attractive that way," she teased. It was mostly bluster and posturing, but considering what they had planned, they really needed to break the ice and get comfortable with this sort of thing. It did not escape Ryouga that, whatever the outcome of Nodoka's test, there was still a good chance that she might ultimately end up sharing Ranma with Akane. 

            Akane did not say anything, and he did not try to avert his eyes. There was something too fascinating about seeing how a boy would respond to being in a girl's body. It did not take long for Ryouga to become oblivious to her audience. That was a good thing, because the nature of Akane's "applause" would have done bad things for her ego. In defense of Akane, he was just discovering the peculiarity of the masculine brain, and it's response to visual stimulus. Akane's endurance was the first to collapse, allowing him to rescue Ryouga from the torturous ordeal Ranma suffered his first time. "Ryouga! Ease off, idiot! It… er… doesn't work the same for girls," he blabbed, before clapping a hand over his mouth. 

            Ryouga jerked out of her trance and paused, blinking. "What?"

            Akane searched his brain for the right term, and then responded. "Don't try and make yourself ejaculate. It's not that common for girls, and you'll make yourself pass out trying to the first time. That was your third orgasm, so give yourself a rest!" he urged, flushing darkly. 

            Ryouga considered that, and sighed in relief. "I'm glad you explained that. I thought I was never going to come!" 

            Akane cringed. Ryouga blushed and proceeded to rinse herself off before joining Akane in the bath. Akane ran more hot water to heat the cooling furo, then relaxed back once more. After Ryouga got comfortable, Akane croaked, "I still don't believe I am doing this." Across from her, the girl nodded. Their indulgences had done a lot to ease the tension, but they were both still uncomfortable and kept their distance. For the first time, Ryouga was glad of the fact that her parents were constantly absent whenever she visited. The only problem was, when the phone started ringing, there was no one there to answer it, forcing Ryouga to race out of the bath in search of the phone. Fortunately, as long as she had the sound to home in on, she was not in danger of getting lost. Even more fortunately, Akane had realized the danger of letting Ryouga out of his sight, and he soon followed, bringing towels and clothes for both of them. 

            Ryouga thanked him, and finished the conversation. Turning to Akane, she announced, "That was Ranma. She said we need to come back to the dojo."

            Akane pushed his damp hair back in irritation, "Did he say why?"

            Ryouga frowned, "Yes. If Fa Shen doesn't meet Herb at Jusenkyo before a week passes, she'll be stuck permanently as a boy."

            That was enough to make Akane forget his exasperation. Looking down at himself, and imagining himself stuck that way forever, he shivered. He had not planned on letting Ranma see what he had done so soon, hoping to have settled his doubts about being a man for Ranma first. "Damn. This is too soon."

            Ryouga picked up on his thoughts, and bit her lip. "It sounded like they didn't expect to leave until tomorrow morning. If you can get us back there before breakfast, we still have time…" she trailed off, leaving the offer hanging. 

            Akane crossed his arms and thought hard. It would be too easy for people to guess what she had planned if she was seen like this tonight. There would not be another chance to be with Ryouga alone. Meeting her eyes, he challenged, "Are you sure? You really don't have to do this if you don't want to."

            "We both need to find out, Akane. At least if it doesn't work with you and me, Ranma doesn't get hurt. I'd rather not have that happen with him," she stated softly, the fear showing clearly on her face. "I'll call them back and tell them we'll be there in the morning."

Ranma hung up the phone and stared at the wall. Around her, the rest of the household was running around preparing for the wedding feast for Shun and Mousse. While Ryouga had not been told about what had happened, Ranma decided Ryouga had been smart to put off coming back to the dojo until the next morning. Sighing deeply, she turned and returned to her room. From the conversation, when Ryouga called back, it was painfully evident that Ryouga was taking advantage of her transformation to find out if she could be girl enough to satisfy Ranma. The red-head tried to suppress the guilt she felt for inspiring her lover to consider such a thing for her by focusing on the fact that Ryouga's predicament had encouraged Akane to forgive the lost "boy" for P-Chan's betrayal. Not that he envied Ryouga for having Akane teach her to be a girl. At least Ryouga was in no danger of becoming more than a tomboy with her help. It would have been much worse if Nodoka had been the one to tutor Ryouga. With a rueful laugh, Ranma recalled her mother's announcement when she returned to the dojo. Fa Shen had been right to have them switch back. Ranko was keeping her recovery a secret still, so it had not been a complete disaster when Nodoka discovered that Fa Shen had been turned into a boy. Still, the prospect that Ranma and Fa Shen could heal Ranko now had prompted Nodoka to take Ranma aside and tell her that, while she could not condemn what had to be done for Ranko, the position it put her in made it even more necessary for Ranma to learn how to be a lady. 

            Nodoka, taking notice of the wedding preparations for Shun and Mousse, insisted on beginning Ranma's training tonight. The only good side was that what Nodoka had in mind was no worse than what Ranma endured on Copy-Ranko's date. Poor Fa Shen was definitely getting the worst of it, since, in Nodoka's odd way of looking at things, Fa Shen had earned an honorary place in the family as Ranma's "lover". Nodoka had taken him aside to emphasize how important it was, under the circumstances, for him to be a "gentleman" for her daughter. Fortunately, as an amazon, he already possessed most of the manly virtues Nodoka required. Straining to understand her reaction, it took Nabiki's observation to put the triplets at ease. The way Nabiki saw it, the strangeness Nodoka returned home to was normal in comparison to what happened that morning, allowing her to confront three more sex changes and take them in stride. "Normal is entirely relative, believe me!" Nabiki laughed. When Nodoka heard about what happened to Soun and Genma, she had sat down at the table and laughed until tears were streaming down her face. 

             Ranma shook her head at the memory and joined Ranko in the search for suitable clothes for the evening. Ranko informed her that, because it was an amazon wedding, she was able to convince their mother that they should dress appropriately as amazons—pulling out a pair of Chinese cheongsams. Ranma immediately approved of the sleek, silk, high collared dresses, since the high slits made them practical for combat. Ranko reminded Ranma of how the old man—the one who gave her the Chinese outfits she had become identified with as Ranma—had forced her to accept the dresses, when he discovered her curse. Because most of Ranma's clothes had been destroyed by the endless confrontations with Shampoo, and he had been broke, he had jumped at the chance to win a free wardrobe by challenging the old man. Ranma's task had been to ruin his clothes. That had proven almost impossible, since the wiry old tailor had been a skilled martial artist who emphasized special techniques to manipulate clothing. The way he used his ki to reinforce and repair cloth, or even make it into a weapon, had verged on magic. When Ranma succeeded in reducing the tailor's clothes to rags, he had conceded defeat and then offered to teach Ranma his techniques while he demonstrated his ability to restore the outfit by brushing it down and pulling it into order. 

            "Once he showed me how to do it, it wasn't that hard to do. It's not that different from using ki to heal, but it seems more impressive because clothes are a lot simpler than flesh," Ranko commented, as she smoothed out the cheongsams, erasing every sign that they had been crumpled up at the bottom of her backpack for almost a year. "I never thought I'd need these, but now I am glad he made me take them too."

            Ranma just stared. Shaking her head roughly to snap out of the memories Ranko had evoked, she shuddered, "It is so weird listening to you talk about stuff like that when my memories say that all happened to me." Ranko met her eyes and nodded in agreement. She did not need to say that her one year hardly compared to the sixteen Ranma had on her. Without comment, they stripped down, chose appropriate undergarments, and slithered into the dresses. Taking turns, they brushed out each other's hair and called Nodoka up to style it for them and help with make up and accessories. It was as Nodoka was applying eye makeup to both of them that she noticed that Ranko's eyes were actually grey. Before she could comment on it, Ranko snapped out of her reverie and as her mood shifted they changed back to the blue Nodoka was familiar with. Curious, Nodoka began to ask questions evoking other moods in the girl, and discovered her eyes could also shift to green. Under the same type of probing, she determined that Ranma's eyes remained the same brilliant blue. Smiling in satisfaction, having found a reliable way to tell the girls apart, she kept her observations to herself and ushered the girls downstairs to dinner. 

            Ranko and Ranma wandered off to check on Fa Shen, who was in charge of Shun for the evening. Nodoka sought out Cologne and mentioned the eye color changes she had noticed in Ranko. Ever observant, the matriarch pointed out that Nodoka and Fa Shen also had this characteristic, as of that morning, and explained that the Togenkyo water had probably affected eye color as well as hair color. Ranma-kun had always had grey eyes, while Ranma-chan and Nodoka had always had blue eyes, so the difference had probably been due to the different effect of the Togenkyo taint on male and female victims. To test her theory, Cologne had Ranma take a drink from her flask of Togenkyo antidote. Additional probing showed that Ranma's eyes now altered according to mood, confirming that the last vestige of the taint had been removed from her. Nodoka pouted at having lost an easy way to tell the girls apart, but shook it off. 

            "How does one ever get used to such things?" Nodoka complained wearily. Just a day ago, even a simple thing like this change in eye color would have seemed miraculous, but rather than feeling jaded by what she had witnessed this day, she was simply exhausted by it.

            Cologne laughed, "Oh, believe me, there is no getting used to it. I am no stranger to myths and legends come to life, but in all my days I never expected to see so much in one day! I don't know what it is about your child, Nodoka, but in any incarnation she seems to be a favorite toy of the gods."

            Nodoka shuddered. She was not a person to speak lightly of the hand of the kami in people's lives. It was certainly true that Ranma and company rivaled Happosai as a focus for pure chaos. On the other hand, the karmic burden on her child, or rather children, was a telling testament to the seriousness of Ranma's unnamed legacy. More than ever, she wished her father had confided in her, or at least warned her that the family debt might have supernatural significance. It could not be just coincidence that so many improbable things would unfold in one person's life. No, she suspected that there was a different curse on her son's head, and that she had only seen the beginning of its effects. Putting that aside for a moment, she turned back to Cologne. "What was it you wished to speak to me about, Elder?" she asked politely. 

            Cologne smiled, "I see you are taking your children's amazon heritage seriously, Dear. I should say, from what I have seen, you would make a fine clan matriarch, Nodoka." Watching the younger woman blush, Cologne chuckled lightly. Clearing her throat, she got to the point, "As I am sure you are aware, Fa Shen is cut off from her own time and her own family. I understand that in the present circumstances it would make you uncomfortable to think of her as family, but Ranma and Ranko are the closest thing she has to family in this day and age, and you are the closest thing she has to a mother. I point this out because, with the condemnation of my heir, Shampoo, I am considering making Fa Shen my new heir. I do not wish to conflict with any possible claim you might make to her, so that leaves me with adopting you, so that all your children may be considered suitable heirs to my position."

            Nodoka blinked in surprise. "Me?" she asked in surprise. 

            "Well, preferably you. Not necessarily your husband, mind you," Cologne grinned. As Nodoka blushed in anger, there seemed no need to state her reservations about bringing Genma into the tribe. "However, the question you might be asking is, what qualifies you, in particular, to bear this honor. No?"

            Nodoka nodded, dismissing thoughts of her husband.

            "Well, as I have mentioned to your children, I believe that you are the descendant of one of the victims of the Nyanniichaun who had the fortune to be marked by Fa Shen's ghost. The resemblance is simply too uncanny to be anything else, and the stories your father told you add some substance to the idea. I was too hasty in dismissing his claim that your mother was an amazon. If she bore such a curse, it would have granted her instant membership, for we would do anything to preserve the bloodline of Fa Shen as it has been passed through that spring for fifteen-hundred years. As the mother of Fa Shen's reincarnation, this is doubly true for you." 

            "Oh my. I don't know what to say."

            "I hope you say yes, but I give you a week to make your decision," Cologne proclaimed before moving on. "As you know, Fa Shen is not over fond of being a man, and the intimacy with Ranma is a matter of practical necessity. We will be making haste tomorrow to speed her to a meeting in China where she might be restored to normal. If that should fail, she will have no choice but to follow in Ranma and Ranko's footsteps and assume a curse to restore her womanhood. From there, we can return to the village where you and your children can be formally welcomed into the tribe and all questions about your status resolved."

            "What questions might those be?" Nodoka asked nervously. 

            "Well, in light of the crime Shampoo committed against your daughter, her claim to Ranko is dissolved with her honor. As Mousse has become a woman and taken a husband, she no longer may pursue her challenge of Ranko. However, it is necessary to determine if Ryouga is married to Ranma or Ranko, which will require a ruling of the council. I believe the choice you have given Ranma will be respected by the council and will help them reach their decision. If Ranma chooses the boy, I am certain Ranko will not contest it, but if he does not, then Ryouga will belong to Ranko. I hope that this does not upset you, Nodoka," Cologne amended, bending her head in respectful deference. 

            Nodoka chewed her lip. "As I understand it, the feelings between Ryouga and Ranma have their roots in Ranko. I believe what they have done has blinded them both to the truth, that Ranma is captured by Ranko's love for the boy, and his love for Ranko has been redirected towards Ranma. I only pushed this decision on them so that they would be compelled to see that for themselves," Nodoka finally explained herself. 

            "I can see you would be worthy of a place on the council yourself," Cologne grinned, approving of the mother's firm but gentle wisdom. Nodding, she concluded, "So, then, is it your wish to claim Fa Shen as your child?"

            Nodoka glanced across the room to look at the boy. She found it easy to think of him as another daughter, while at the same time she wished there was some way for Fa Shen to trade places with Ranma, so that it was her son who stood a chance of becoming entirely male. With a heavy sigh, she answered, "I would be pleased to call her my daughter, but whatever happens to her I will recognize her as my child. Although, if you are correct, it would be more accurate to view her as my mother."

            Cologne nodded in acceptance. "I suppose that is a strange thing to consider, though you can be assured, Fa Shen herself had no children. She will most certainly look upon you as a mother," the old woman comforted Nodoka. Having settled the matter for the moment, confident that what was now possible greatly exceeded her wildest expectations, she was free to turn her attention to addressing her Great-Grandchild's happiness. Politely dismissing Nodoka, she summoned Shun with a gesture, and Fa Shen dutifully followed the brooding boy as he had been charged.

            "Yes, Elder Cologne?" Shun opened, after kneeling before the matriarch.

            "Make yourself comfortable, Shun. I simply wished to speak to you about your marriage," Cologne gave Fa Shen a look, and the red haired boy quietly dismissed himself from earshot. Once assured of relative privacy, Cologne spoke directly. "Shampoo, I understand that this turn of events is disappointing, but after what you have done, there is no way I can spare you. As much as it grieves me to see you reduced to this, I have to say I am grateful to Mousse for bringing you back into the tribe. I am afraid that there is no one else who would take you as you are, since you have certainly offended both Ranko and Fa Shen beyond endurance."

            "Shampoo understand, Great-Grandmother," the boy sighed, taking some comfort from the fact that Cologne was willing to momentarily suspend the fiction he was forced to submit to. 

            Cologne studied him sadly for a moment, before continuing. "Before I comment on your good fortune to have such a loving and devoted wife, I suppose I must point out that there is no certainty she will remain a woman. If Mousse reverts back to normal, there will be no cause for the tribe to accept him as a woman, and this marriage will be dissolved. Furthermore, if Fa Shen also is restored, your exile will be reversed. If it were not to become known exactly what you intended to do to Ranko, it might even be possible to absolve you of that guilt and commute your sentence. You are simply fortunate that locking Fa Shen merely recreated the situation in which she was resurrected, so even the details of that might be kept from the council, permitting you to regain your name and womanhood."

            Shun looked up hopefully. 

            "Do not rejoice yet. These things are only possible if Ranko and Fa Shen endorse them. I suspect, however sympathetic they may be toward you, that they will not do so as long as you lay claim to Ranko. I have it within my power to make yours and your wife's conditions permanent, and preserve what you now have. It is the only thing I can guarantee. If you should be restored to normal, and resume your pursuit of Ranko, all she needs to do is state what you did here today, and your life will be forfeit. Do you understand?"

            Shun gulped and nodded. 

            "Good. As things stand, I can no longer consider you my heir. That honor shall go to Fa Shen as reparation for your crime. Honestly, if she were to challenge you for that position, she would claim it easily." Cologne paused to scan the room, finding Mousse being fussed over by Ranma and Ranko. Narrowing her eyes, she corrected herself. Apparently they were ribbing the neo-girl about the high point of her wedding night. Returning to Shun with a giggle, she decided it was time to clarify something. "Shampoo, I know that you never hated Mousse as much as you pretended. I believe I encouraged your disdain for him with my own disapproval. The thing is, I never really told you why I disapproved of him. To put it simply, I was always of the opinion that he should have been a girl. It seemed such a waste of talent for him to be born a male, especially considering the curse afflicting the men in his family. Why a family of blind martial artists chose to practice a hidden weapons style, instead of the art of fighting blind, I will never understand."

            Shun gaped at Cologne. "You say, you approve of Mousse NOW?"

            Cologne laughed, "I suppose I am. Again, the decision is yours, child. I dare say, if Mousse has any more chisuiiton water, she has already made her condition permanent. As far as she knows, you have no other option yourself. Now, you know otherwise. I would prefer to have my great-granddaughter back, but if this marriage is your only chance of happiness, I do hope you will embrace it. If not, then I will do what I can to help you redeem yourself."

            Shampoo considered, for a moment, how he would react to a Mousse who was not a blind idiot. He had to admit to himself, that the innumerable insults he had suffered through Mousse's inattention were all attributed to the former boy's eyesight. A problem Shampoo herself had escalated. In a timid voice he admitted, "If can see good, Shampoo no mind Mousse so much. No can respect warrior who make fool of himself all time. Shampoo never know if he serious or if he just mocking her. Mousse make nice girl, but… Shampoo not so happy to be boy. Want to be Shampoo again. Not know what to do."

            Cologne's heart ached for her great-grandchild. Therein lay the real problem. Mousse's love would make it easy for her to accept her current form, and such feelings might, in time, reconcile Shampoo to being Shun. It did not mean the pair would not wish deep down to be what they once were. The best hope for both of them, since the lock on their temporary cursed posed the same risks, would be for them to end up with versions of Ranko's curse. Neither of them had intended to change sex, and if fate decided to mark them that way, the council would make an exception for them. The danger of exposing either of them to Jusenkyo again, if their curses were compromised, was too great to consider. Rather than share her thoughts, she responded only with, "If the fates are kind, an answer will present itself. Until then, I bid you, enjoy your marriage, for it might not last."

            Shun considered that and then turned to look at Mousse. It was not the ideal relationship he had imagined with Ranko, and his heart ached for the red-haired girl as she stood next to Shun's wife. No, far from perfect, but it had potential. If nothing else, Mousse would need help fitting in as a woman, and Shun was well equipped to provide it. Even at her worst, when Shampoo had nothing but contempt for the boy, Mousse had been her friend. If he had been at all sincere about his feelings for Shampoo, it was possible that the girl he was now would treat her husband with respect, as an equal, and that was part of her dream with Ranko. Excusing himself, Shun made his way over to greet his wife, and begin the process of repairing their relationship. 

Somewhere in the deep, dark forest, two women strained their voices to imitate the manly tones they were used to, as the tried to cling to their lost manhood. They sat on a log close to their camp fire, legs braced wide apart, but certainly not wide enough to accommodate the egos they tried to inflate. However hard they tried, while dousing their sorrows with sake, they could not console themselves for their condition, and fell to poking at each other's bodies and mocking each other for their fall from grace. It was as the two fathers were falling over each other, so drunk that each was driven to making sloppy passes at the other woman, that a booming, hearty cackle of joy chilled their hearts. As one, they turned their heads to peer through the flames and see the tiny demon that was approaching. While not the first shriek of terror to escape their throats at this very sight, it was the first time in many decades that Soun and Genma were truly equipped to scream like little school girls. That, and the sight of them clinging to each other in mortal fear, was enough to cripple Happosai with tears of laughter. 

            "Oh happy day!" he cried, as he recovered and lunged over the fire to glomp his two disciples. It only took a moment for the last shred of masculine outrage and pride to shatter before a flood of righteous, feminine indignity spurred the pair to lash out in terrified vengeance. It was one of the most enjoyable beatings the still weakened pervert had ever endured. Many long minutes after Soun and Genma retreated, panting with exhaustion, Happosai sprung up and eyed the two carefully. Then, reaching into a bulging knapsack, he pulled out bras and panties suitable for their new dimensions, Happosai charged back into the fray. He quickly proved that, while he was reluctant to strike either of them in their present forms, he could certainly harass them into a weary stupor. 

            "Soun! Genma! I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see you like this!" he crowed, when the pair revived and noticed themselves dressed solely in lingerie. 

            "Saotome-kun," Soun gulped, pointing at her old friend with a trembling hand. "Just look at what the master has done to you!"

            "Yes, Tendo-kun," Genma shuddered, pointing back, "Truly, the master knows your tastes."

            "Hey!"

            "Sorry, sorry… Just remembering the good old days…"

            "You promised never to speak of that again!"

            "Under the circumstances…"

            "But it was my wife's idea!" Soun bawled. 

            "I know. I know. Akane certainly does take after her mother."

            "Ahem."

            The pair suddenly remembered they were not alone anymore. "Gyaaaa! Run, Tendo!" Genma bolted to her feet and sprinted out of the clearing. 

            "Oh, I just love chases!"

            "Yaaaaa!" Soun raced after Genma. 

            "Have no fear! Happosai is here! Let me offer you girls a shoulder to cry on!" rubbing his hands, the old lecher leaped off in pursuit. 

            By the end of the night, he would have them trained to wear undergarments more to their master's taste, and cowed enough to obey him in executing the schemes his demented mind could think up to exploit their new forms to liberate his silky darlings, and the poor, curvaceous beauties that were imprisoned by them. In the morning, the world would tremble at the onslaught of chibi-Happosai, infant molester, his devoted mother Genko and their beloved maid-servant, Sunna! 

_AN: It is my hope to wrap this up by Part 45, however, with the plans for a sequel not all the threads opened in this story will be wrapped up here. At least one thread is going to wander off into a side story, if it proves to be a distraction from the emphasis of the sequel. As many of you may note, the opening threat of Reflections has already been resolved, with Ranko's escape from the influence of the mirror and her recovery. However, things are a far cry from being back to normal! The big question on everyone's mind, right now, must be: Are all these people going to remain stuck as the wrong sex, or end up with a sex changing curse? Well, all I can say is, people who play with fire tend to get burnt. There was never a realistic chance of all the moths drawn to Ranma's—or in this case, Ranko's—flame escaping unscathed. If ever I wished to hear my reader's feedback, it would be to find out what you all think might happen to the twice cursed members of the NWC! Where will all this chaos lead? Tune in next time to find out! _

_Ja ne!_


	42. The Betrayals of Love and Lust

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Forty-Two: The Betrayals of Love and Lust

Ranko stood on the edge of the engawa, facing the koi pond, and stretched her arms up over her head. Altogether, she had been incapacitated by the loss of Ranma and Fa Shen's ki for just under a full day, and the combination of spiritual paralysis and fits and spurts of physical exertion had left her body a bundle of knots. The urge to step into the yard for a decent workout fought with her desire to protect Ranma and Fa Shen's secret from their mother. She compromised by drifting into the yard and flowing into a slow kata that would loosen and warm her muscles without betraying her recovery. As she moved, she thought about the things that happened, and mused on how quickly the cool, clear night had settled in around Nerima. She had missed the sunset while she was getting dressed and styled. Smiling, as her body moved freely despite the deceptively tight looking cheongsam, she found herself rejoicing in her escape from the confines of Ranma's psyche. No longer was she compelled to question and fight her instincts every step of the way. She knew she was still heavily influenced by his experiences, but it did not really bother her if she found herself acting like a boy. The point was, she no longer had to fear acting like a girl. She could just be natural. 

            It was an intoxicating liberation. 

            In spite of her inner joy, her steps suddenly faltered. To anyone watching, she caught the slip so quickly they might not have noticed the mistake. It did not matter, since the only person who mattered was painfully aware of it, and what caused it. Resetting herself, she started the kata over, but her thoughts were stalled on what had happened when she "let herself be natural". The key to that, being herself, was following her instincts, but she wondered if that meant her instincts betrayed her this afternoon. Frowning, she rephrased that. What she did was selfish, and while it did not betray her, it betrayed both Ranma and Fa Shen. 

            Again, she stumbled as the guilty thought coincided with a difficult step, forcing her to add a correcting maneuver to the kata, violating it's form. Gritting her teeth, she acknowledged that she had done the same with their triumvirate. She made an impulsive choice, and threatened to violate the integrity of their coexistence. 

            "Damn!" she muttered, aborting the exercise and falling still. Turning on her heel, she returned to the dojo and sealed herself inside. Arriving where she had been when it had happened, she chuckled grimly. "Returning to the scene of the crime. You'd think Pops'd taught me better." Shaking her head, she knelt down and tried to focus on what had happened. Everything had been fine when Ranma and Fa Shen entered the trap mirror. Ranko had selected an exercise to strengthen her focus, and when she felt the circuit open, she had been surprised by how well she was able to adjust to the impact of their passion. So many years of disciplining herself in the art—at least as she remembered it—had given her the foundation she needed to embrace that sexual heart, and set her mind above it. 

            In truth, it was not easy at all, it just had not been as impossible as she had initially feared, after being blown away the first time. It took discipline, and she had discipline to spare, to adapt herself to the overpowering impact and allure of pleasure. It was close enough to pain in that regard that she could cope with it, as long as she was mentally prepared. If they went at it while she was not fighting or training, she knew she would not fare as well. The power that came with the activity had to be channeled, or it would simply floor her. 

            Closing her eyes, and taking a deep breath, she moved on to where things went wrong. Satisfied with her ability to function under the onslaught of power and pleasure, her attention had turned to the mystery itself. It was simple curiosity, a desire to understand what she had harnessed, and discover exactly how she could control it. To use it, she really needed to know how it worked. Falling into a trance, she had delved into the circuit and danced through the minds of her other selves. All their thoughts, memories and emotions hung naked before her awareness, like glittering sculptures of light. Some were abstract and amorphous, while others were vivid and engulfing landscapes. As she wandered, she was inspired, guided by instinct to grab hold of the fabric of their lives. With delight, she opened up the doors of Fa Shen's memory, embracing it as she had Ranma's the day of her creation. She was shocked by the many parallels of their lives, discovering that she had overcome the flaw in Ranma's personality that had blocked off everything in her that was Fa Shen. She welcomed a life of rigorous training under the hand of Pa Shen. She suffered the many insane events that traumatized the other girl. 

            It had seemed to take a long time, but it happened in the blink of an eye. The other half of herself unfolded, and suddenly Ranko felt whole. She had an understanding of where she came from, the things that shaped her both consciously and unconsciously, and where her path deviated from these two tributaries. But even as she was conscious of mending the foundation of her own psyche, she was drawn to the conflicts that were tormenting her other selves. Both of them were having difficulty assimilating and accepting the year of Ranko's ascension. In concern, Ranko had focused on the flaws that stabbed through the minds of Ranma and Fa Shen like massive shards of broken crystal. As she stared in disbelief, her instincts told her that those shards were pieces of herself, things above and beyond memory and experience, that threatened their sanity. In each, a part of Ranko that their opposite could have embraced which they themselves could not. 

            Ranko opened her eyes and stared across the dojo. "I didn't mean any harm. I only meant to help!" she cried softly. But that did not matter. She had been impulsive, she had reached out to reclaim those fragments of herself without examining them. Once they were in her possession, there was no giving them back. In retrospect, it was probably best for Ranko that she had claimed them, but there was a difference between what those shards were to her, and what they were to her progenitors. The core of her own masculinity, in Fa Shen, and the core of her own femininity, in Ranma, that the mirror stripped away from her to create the copies. As she watched, the wounds in both their minds were healed, as pure Yin bled off from Fa Shen into Ranma and pure Yang flowed the opposite way through the open circuit. Now, instead of just being bound to Ranko, there was a channel directly between them. Taking back Copy-kun and Copy-chan only made Ranko more whole, but while echoes of the memories those two possessed would remain in Fa Shen and Ranma, the passions behind them did not. 

            As this comprehension dawned, Ranko had desperately reached out, mostly to Ranma. In some relief, she realized she had not destroyed his love for Ryouga, but she had removed the passion of Copy-chan that drove it. In his own way, Ranma had also fallen in love with Ryouga that night, but it was now no stronger than his love for Akane. Turning to Fa Shen, Ranko could see no danger from stripping away the yearning love Copy-kun kindled for Akane. What the passions of the copies would do to Ranko herself, she could not guess. In addition, sparing Ranma and Fa Shen the copies passion for each other did little, now that they were bound to each other's essence. 

            In the heat of the moment, neither Ranma nor Fa Shen had sensed what Ranko had done. If anything, she had left them utterly at ease with themselves. Ranko could not feel proud of herself, since a lobotomy could accomplish the same thing. Fighting her way out of the circuit, sensing that the couple had already changed places, she had used the last of her influence to compel them to withdraw from each other. As they did, she noticed one last thing. Just as the mirror had granted the copies Ranko's memories, the union she had just severed had allowed the memories of all three to pool. Everything up to the moment Ranma and Fa Shen switched places, all three remembered in one fashion or another. 

            "The next time they switch, they'll find out what I did," Ranko moaned. 

            Covering her head with her arms, she rocked on her knees. What she had taken from Fa Shen had eased a burden he had carried from the moment he awoke. But even Fa Shen would be upset about what she had taken from Ranma. Both of them would suffer from the loss of Copy-chan and Copy-kun's acceptance of their gender, while Ranma and Fa Shen were stuck as the opposite sex. The could no longer lean on what they had borrowed from Ranko. They had the memories, but they would have to find their own acceptance. 

            Of course, Ranko had not gotten off easy either. Where she had been gender neutral after the split, she was now polarized. The intellectual understanding she had expressed earlier, about being both a boy and a girl, had now become a harsh reality. She NEEDED the curse, or she would soon go insane. Her very psyche had an erotic tension, as one side was aroused by the other. Mixed in with that, the potential for loving Ryouga was now fully realized, as everything that happened on that date with him became part of her. Squeezing her eyes shut, to cut off tears that wanted to spill down her cheeks, she fought off the realization that, in Ryouga's mind, it was Ranma… That night had bound Ryouga to Ranma. It belonged to Ranma. No matter what happened, that night would stand between Ryouga and Ranko. 

            The thought evoked a bitter laugh. 

            Wiping her eyes, she stood and scowled at herself. That was what kept causing her to stumble. Not that she had stolen Ranma's love for her old rival. No, Ranma had her own love, her own reasons to pursue Ryouga. It was weakened, but strong enough to compete with what she felt for Akane. The problem, the betrayal, was that she wanted to take Ryouga away from Ranma. The love was so powerful, she did not think she could fight it. Maybe flee, but fight or flee, she knew she would get hurt. 

            "I don't know what to do," she confessed to the shadows. Unable to resolve her guilt, but at least able to face it, she exited the dojo, and slipped into the house. Skirting the party, she slipped into the washroom to check her appearance, finding her make up smudged from when she had scrubbed her tears away. Experimenting a little, she discovered that the techniques she had learned to preserve the integrity of her clothing could also be used to restore her face. She lacked the skill to do the make up itself, but somehow, she could tell her ki to put it back the way it had been. The old tailor had to have been some kind of sorcerer. It figured someone could teach her magic if they just told her it was really martial arts!

The house was lit up like a lantern, spilling curtains of radiance across the yard. Ranko found herself admiring the play of light as she made her way along the engawa from the furo to rejoin the party. As she came to the opening to the Tea Room, she spotted Ranma gulping down the last of her meal. Seated at the head of the table, just to Ranma's right, were the couple of honor, Mousse and Shun, who had reached some kind of truce about the wedding. Around the table from them sat Fa Shen, Nabiki and Nodoka, all picking at their meal while kibitzing, and of course, Cologne, beaming with pride. Ukyo was helping Kasumi as hostess; Nabiki had decided to make it up to her for the loss of business in recent nights by hiring her as a "caterer". It was a bald faced payoff to keep the martial artist around in case Happosai showed up. Forty-million yen had brought out Nabiki's generous side, it seemed. Spotting Ranko on the threshold, Ukyo smiled brilliantly and winked, pointing out a place setting for her intended, next to Nodoka at the foot of the table. 

            Ranko put a smile on her face, and was about to join her mother, when Ranma bounced up and darted past her, shouting her intention to go check up on Ryouga and make sure Akane had not poisoned her with one of her dinners. Ranko stopped spinning in the wake of Ranma's exit, and found herself looking at her mother. Nodoka shook her head and rolled her eyes, while smiling in maternal indulgence. Remembering that they needed to discuss something, Ranko went and sat next to her mother. Nabiki had checked her paperwork and concluded that Nodoka was the best "courier" for their flight to China. The ticket had been purchased in her name, and Ranko was supposed to check with Nodoka to make sure she understood the plan. 

            Fortunately, Nodoka had been informed of her role in the mission to save Fa Shen's womanhood, but she had not realized they were leaving the next morning. When Ranko explained it to her, Nodoka hastily completed her meal, shocking everyone with her imitation of Ranko during her Martial Arts Dining phase. There was no question where her children got their natural speed, though their manners were still in need of polishing. After Nodoka excused herself to rush home and pack for the flight, the wedding feast came to a close. The bride and groom had been offered the downstairs guest room, and were about to sneak off toward it, before anyone summoned them to help clean up the aftermath, when Cologne spoke up. 

            "Before anyone else wanders off, I need to collect all the Instant Nyanniichaun packets and destroy them," Cologne announced to everyone in the room. Seeing hesitation on everyone's faces, she elaborated, "I know, Ryouga has most of them, but I saw some of you pick a few up when he dropped them. I am certain most of you would think twice about using them after hearing they are self locking, however, I cannot take that risk. The product has been banned and I swore to destroy the packets we had."

            Shun, Mousse and Ranko reluctantly handed the packets they had snatched to Cologne, who gathered them up with the empty packet she had retained for informational purposes. A few voices were raised, asking to know what Cologne had learned from the Jusenkyo Guide.

            "Well, gather round, then. I will tell you as I finish dealing with these," the old woman promised. Everyone returned and settled around the table. Cologne asked Kasumi for something she could use to destroy the packets, and she quickly returned with a small, indoor brazier. While Kasumi set it up and lit it, Cologne began to explain, roughly outlining the nature of a curse. She then repeated the tattoo analogy for the benefit of everyone besides Ranko and Fa Shen. "Like all curses," she stated, moving on to the specifics, "the magic of the instant versions is only active during the transformation itself. The form created by a curse is permanent and true unless the magic is reactivated, until which, the form it replaces is bound up in the dormant part of the curse." 

            "And the instant curses are just on the surface of one's ki, and not rooted deep within it, like a normal curse," Ranko inserted. 

            Cologne nodded and continued. "When a temporary curse is locked, there is a chance of that original form, or a cursed form the instant replaces, being forever lost if the infected part of the ki is shed before the curse is unlocked. The same danger exists with the original instant curse formulas, if they are locked, since the locking is the cause of the problem." Which meant, it did not matter if they were a victim of the improved instant, water proof soap, or the chisuiiton. The risks were identical. Seeing that everyone seemed aware of this, Cologne moved on. 

            "Now, the people who designed the curse locking formulas for both the soap and the new instant curses were not entirely stupid. They knew that if the instant curse was locked for a week or more, the original form of the subject would be lost forever. That is about how long it takes for surface ki to be converted to chi. So, the formula is supposed to last only up to a week. Unfortunately, the thing that breaks down the formula is some component of living physiology or metabolism, which they have not identified, and as we all know, these things are different from person to person," Cologne pointed out ruefully. Picking up the used packet, from the pile she had collected, she finally explained her demand. "That's why the improved product was banned, because it was common for uncursed clients to be permanently altered by it." 

            "Oh dear! You mean, Father might remain a woman?" Kasumi gasped.

            "Oh, the horror," Nabiki quipped, smirking. 

            Cologne nodded sternly. She carefully fed the pile into the flames of the brazier. "I have some thoughts as to how to minimize the risk, but with him absent on a training mission, I cannot advise him or Genma." After getting all the facts from the Guide, she had spent much of the afternoon and evening puzzling over them. During the feast, she had come up with an idea for breaking the locking formula. She assured Kasumi she would leave a message detailing her idea that the girl could give to her father, if he contacted her while the rest of them were in China. Returning to her main point, she continued. "As for cursed individuals, locking an instant curse is virtually certain to have some kind of permanent effect. A small percentage remain in the instant curse form, which is to say, these people somehow manage to shake off the original curse and thus cannot return to either of those forms." 

            "Actually, the same thing can happen to a normal curse victim who gets locked by the chisuiiton," Fa Shen interrupted. "It is a known danger of the traditional Shokei Fist training."

            "Ah, if I recall my history correctly, you apprenticed in the Shokei Fist, did you not? Perhaps you should tell us about that when we are through here," Cologne suggested. Fa Shen nodded and Cologne resumed once more. "Most cursed victims reported having their original or cursed form replaced by the instant form—depending on the temperature of the water used to activate the instant formula—and a few ended up with mutated curses." This was the danger Genma, Ryouga, Mousse and Shampoo needed to fear most. They had a greater chance of ending up with hybrid curses, since their original cursed forms were the ones superimposed upon by the instant. "The only good news is that the evidence suggests that the older the curse was, the greater the chance of coming out unscathed."

            Smiling at the hopeful looks on Shun and Mousse's faces, as they clung to the hope they would not end up with mutated curses, Cologne decided to propose the solution she had come up with. "Now, this might also qualify as good news, but as it is untested, I cannot guarantee anything," she temporized. Seeing she had everyone's attention, she continued. "As I mentioned before, metabolism is a factor in breaking down the locking formula. There is a physical component, some sort of residue which remains after using the soap, which is probably what the body can break down. As martial artists, you all have high metabolisms, so the important thing to emphasize is that you must not draw upon your ki or expend a great deal of chi as you accelerate your normal training regimens," Cologne advised commandingly. 

            "If the lock is broken down, then what happens?" Mousse asked.

            "Well, as I understand it, there is a difference between the outcome for a normal victim and a Jusenkyo victim," Cologne stated, warming her hands before the brazier and staring deep into the flame. "The instant is only capable of two transformations, and it tends to override a genuine curse—but only partially. The first transformation asserts the form held in the instant curse. The second transformation removes the temporary curse. Now, with instant curses, the trigger is set by the temperature of the water used, so in our case the first transformations had a cold water trigger. On a normal victim, hot water is then required to reverse the transformation. On a Jusenkyo victim, however, a pre-charged transformation gets stored in the temporary curse. Thus, cold water will trigger the instant curse again, summoning back the form from the original curse, while hot water will trigger the Jusenkyo curse instead, summoning back the true form of the victim. The form from the original curse would be lost." 

            "That sounds like a good way to prevent a curse mutation," Mousse observed cheerfully.

            "Well, it's only a theory, but it fits everything I know about the interaction between true and temporary curses," Cologne hedged carefully. "I don't know of any Jusenkyo victim who was lucky enough to reverse an instant curse with hot water. Cold water seems to always find them first."

            That was hardly surprising, and those who knew cold water's malice best made unpleasant faces and sounds of frustration. Before anyone could voice another question, an interruption in the form of a sword-wielding maniac, also known at Tatewaki Kuno, burst into the room calling out the boy he intended to murder.

            "Kuno!" Ranko yelped in surprise.

            "Oh no," Ukyo swayed, quickly setting down the tray she was carrying. In all the confusion, she had forgotten her earlier mission. She was supposed to keep Kuno from hearing about Ranma and Ryouga. To that end, she had abandoned the paralyzed Fa Shen and taken chase after the psychotic gymnast. Kodachi had foiled Ukyo's pursuit in the simplest manner, by racing directly to Furinkan High School. The chef had hesitated upon reaching the perimeter of the school grounds to consider what would happen if she showed up back at school after being excused for a family emergency. With the student body spilling out of the building for lunch break, enjoying the unseasonable warmth of the last days of winter, there was little chance of her going unnoticed. Hopping to the top of the wall, to look for Kodachi, she caught sight of the girl bounding up to her brother and realized it was too late to prevent her from informing Kuno of Ryouga's conquest. She lingered just long enough to see the boy explode with fury, though she could only guess at what exactly Kodachi had said. With a sigh, Ukyo left, hoping that Nabiki was up to the level of damage control it would take to deal with the rumors that would start with those who had been close enough to the Kunos to pick up on the situation.

            "Ukyo!" Fa Shen moved to the chef's side. 

            "I'm sorry, Fa Shen. This is my fault," she moaned under her breath.

            "Hibiki, you foul cur!" shouted the kendoist, in a threatening pose, his head whipping around in search of the lost boy. "Show yourself that I might smite thee and avenge the honor of the glorious red tressed goddess…!"

            "Ranko!" a voice intruded from the door.

            "…Ranko!" Kuno corrected automatically, at the sound of Nodoka's voice. Turning as a somewhat breathless and disheveled Nodoka entered the room and stopped to catch her breath. Relaxing her guard he bowed his head to her. "Well met, noble scion of the Saotome Clan."

            "Oh. You're already here," Nodoka slumped a bit, before straightening and drawing her sword. "I have told you before I will not condone these assaults on my daughter!" she challenged. 

            "Alas! Did you say, truly, Daughter?" Kuno gaped. 

            "Indeed! It seems I was wrong last night, as her identity was not truly known until this morning," the proud matriarch nodded gracefully. Taking an offensive stance, she repeated her challenge, "But enough of this! What cause have you to enter these premises bearing arms and such malice!?" 

            "Good grief! Your mom's as bad as Kuno, Ranko!' Nabiki grinned. 

            "No more noble a cause than to champion the honor of your beauteous daughter, Ranko! She, whom the gods themselves must certainly adore, from whom I take the very inspiration of my breath, for whom I must stand to remove this unspeakable insult as rendered by odious, perverted molester, Hibiki Ryouga!" he answered in as few words as possible. For Kuno, anyway.

            "How does he get it all out in one breath?" Ranko gawked. 

            "He probably siphon air from head," Shun suggested. 

            Kuno and Nodoka ignored them. 

            "Do you dare speak ill of my daughter's fiancé?" she raised a haughty eyebrow, tightening her grip on her sword. 

            "Mom!!!" 

            "Hush, child," Nodoka soothed, flicking an eye at Cologne to explain the engagement she referred to, the question that yet lay before the amazon council. Ranko, not getting the hint, almost lurched to her feet before Cologne leveled her cane to restrain her and whisper the explanation.

            "I cannot ignore the impertinence, the unseemly exploitation of my beloved orchid's innocence by that worthless vagabond, Hibiki, which has brought upon your house this shameful engagement!" he affirmed staunchly, unperturbed. 

            "Oh ho! Tell me you do not dare to impugn my daughter's honor with such baseless slander!" the woman's voice turned to ice. 

            "Indeed! Could there be any other reason for so worthless a suitor to win the hand of my fair goddess?" Kuno implored. 

            Nodoka sniffed and scowled, "Then you, sir, are in grievous error! I say to you now, and you are not to question it lest you love not life, this girl," she pointed at Ranko, "is a virgin. I find myself quite vexed that you would grasp at any excuse to protest the affairs of honor of my house at every turn. I bid you, quit these premises 'ere you quit your life!" 

            Kuno flinched back. Turning to Ranko, he demanded, "Is this true?"

            Ranko, blushing furiously and glaring, snapped out, "Not that it's any of your business, and not like it isn't goin' outta style fast, but yeah!"

            Nabiki fell over laughing, while Fa Shen looked like he wanted to crawl under the table. Kuno just opened and closed his mouth in abject embarrassment, until a movement by Fa Shen drew his attention. Taking a second look, which caused him to whip around fully and stare, he gasped, "Saotome! Can it be you!?" he clutched at his head, as if someone had just driven a railroad spike into his skull. Squinting, he edged forward until they were millimeters apart. Reaching out to touch the brilliant red hair, he flinched back. "Nay, these eyes that have pierced the veils of deepest sorcery can not lie! Well do I know thine face! Too many times have I stared it down in battle, you can be no other! What means this, this transformation?" 

            "Would you… please… stop breathing on me?" Fa Shen begged through gritted teeth, just barely restraining himself. His brain was telling him he should only be this close to kissing the other boy in nightmares and very bad productions of Romeo and Juliet. 

            "Forgive me," Kuno backed off instantly, glancing at Nodoka. "I can see that the dark spell has been lifted from your family. Truly, restoring your sister to her proper place has brought sanity and unity to your house. One could not doubt your noble birth, to see the dark stains lifted from your heads." He sheathed his sword and stepped up to Nodoka, bowing low. "I humbly entreat your forgiveness. It seems I have fallen prey to my demented sister's cruel lies. Even so, I cannot quit my suit of your daughter. It is not my place to tell you the man who holds claim to her is unworthy of her. Be that as it may, should you see the truth of this, I beg you consider my petition for the hand of Saotome Ranko."

            Ranko stared, bug eyed, at Kuno. While this could hardly come as a surprise, there was a certain, gut wrenching terror aroused the instant she grasped Kuno's intention to marry her, however backhanded the proposal. It was enough to make the contents of her stomach heave, but the real cause for panic came from Nodoka herself. One could not listen to Nodoka banter in archaic tones of nobility and brandish a sword with just as much enthusiasm as Kuno, and not dread that the woman might find the True Blunder of Furinkan High an ideal match for her daughter. Ranko would be screaming in protest, if she did not have her hands clamped to her mouth as her insides twisted with revulsion.

            "I will let this insult pass," the mother relented, evoking a pleading whine of despair from her daughter. "But, I am not inclined forgive you entirely your past transgressions. Leave and do not darken my sight again 'ere I bid you," Nodoka banished him, disturbed somehow by his very presence. Of said past transgressions, Ranko had given her an earful on the train the night before. Without a word, Kuno complied, letting himself out the front door. 

            "I think I'm gonna go puke," Ranko raced out of the room. 

            "Me too!" Fa Shen followed her. 

            "I wonder why it took him so long to show up?" Nabiki wondered. 

            "Pardon me, but are you done with your packing so soon?" Kasumi asked Nodoka in amazement. "That was so quick!"

            "Oh, no," Nodoka blushed, waving the idea off. "I was headed home when I saw that boy racing toward the dojo with his sword drawn. He seems to have a strange habit of attacking my children."

            "You have no idea," Nabiki chuckled. Standing up, she smiled to Nodoka. "Let me call you a cab, since you had to run back here. I'll send Fa Shen with you to handle the luggage and walk you back, ne?" Nodoka nodded gratefully. When the red headed teens returned to the room, Fa Shen quickly agreed to go with Nodoka, and Ranko volunteered to go drag Ranma back to the dojo. She would probably have to carry the other girl home, since she'd be beaten and unconscious after explaining why she went over to check on Ryouga and Akane. 

Coming into sight of the Hibiki home, Ranko shook her head and grinned at the suddenness of her arrival. For once, when things went wrong, they had turned out for the better. As she had left the dojo, Nodoka had objected to Ranko heading off alone at night in her "weakened condition" until Ranko pointed out that Ryouga's house was a block from the nearest train station, and declared that she would be safe enough on the train there and back. Thinking that would calm her mother, she turned to leave, and was surprised when Nodoka grabbed her and stuffed her into the cab with herself and Fa Shen. When she protested, Nodoka told her she was having the driver swing by the Nerima station to drop Ranko off. Taking the train was always part of her usual short cut to Ryouga's house, but riding inside one, going the full route at much better speed, she made it there in record time. She just had to live with the disappointment of losing another opportunity to cut loose and go haring off over the rooftops. Figuring the time since Ranma left ahead of her, her twin would only have about a twenty minutes lead now. 

            That was just enough time to show up and witness the explosion. 

            Oddly, when she approached the house, it was dark, except for a dim light emanating from Ryouga's room. Curious, she hopped to the top of the sound wall and stretched up on her tip toes toward the window. It would have been easy to jump up and cling to the window sill, but if Akane was in there it was a good way to get hammered over the horizon. Finding herself unable to see anything but the ceiling of the bedroom, she decided she had little choice and edged back, glancing down to check her footing, and measure the distance over the ground. To her shock, there was a familiar body laid out on the ground underneath the second story window. 

            "Ranma! You idiot!" she hopped down and checked the other girl, taking her presence there, unconscious, as a sure sign that Akane was indeed in the room. Shaking her head, she picked her twin up and made her way to the front door. "I bet she took one look at you and clobbered you for 'spyin' on her'. Ah well, I didn't think anyone was home either," she sighed and rang the door bell. 

            From inside the house came a couple of surprised thumps, a distant clatter and then foot steps rushing down the stairs to the door. Ranko adjusted Ranma's weight and stepped back a bit as the door opened and a disheveled and endearingly female Ryouga, dressed only in a robe, appeared. 

            Ranko's eyes widened in surprise. "Hey, Ryouga. Am I interrupting anything?" she teased, taking in the girl's flushed and sweaty appearance. 

            "Ah! No! Ah ha ha ha ha! I was…! That is, me and Akane…! What I mean to say is, Akane and I were… uh… just… just working out. Yeah! That's all! We were just getting a little exercise!" she babbled loudly, nervously rubbing the back of her head.

            Ranko's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "In your bathrobe?"

            "What!?" Ryouga's eyes snapped wide open. She glanced down and resumed laughing nervously. "Oh! Uh… Well… What I meant to say was, Akane and I WERE just working out. As in, we're done now! And, ah… well, you see, I needed a bath! That's right. Always a good idea to take a bath when you're all hot and sweaty… after a workout, I mean! Right?"

            Ranko schooled her features into a mask of calm, and nodded. "This is true. Geez, Ryouga," she shook her head and rolled her eyes, trying not to read anything into the manic grin Ryouga was giving her. "You need to calm down. The way you're acting, a body'd think you were up to no good, or somethin'."

            Ryouga flinched and twitched, quickly shaking her head, as if she was climbing out of a pool of water. "Oh, no! Everything is fine… I'm good! Akane's good! She's better than good, she's fantastic!"

            "That's… great, Ryouga. Um. Can I come in now? Ranma ain't exactly heavy or nothin' but, I think she needs to lie down," Ranko pressed, taking a step forwards. Ryouga blinked, turning her head to look inside the house and blocking the door almost inadvertently. Looking back, she sighed and offered a more genuine smile, "Sure, Ranko. Sorry about that. I just wasn't expecting any visitors." Taking a step back and sweeping an arm in invitation, she added, "Come on in, Akane just went to start something for dinner. There's a couch in the living room where you can put Ranma down."

            Ranko nodded, not expecting Ryouga to lead the way. Entering the common area of the house, the mentioned couch was no where in sight, but with Ryouga, any room she had ever been in might potentially be a part of her house, as far as she was concerned. Laying Ranma on the floor, she found a cushion to prop up her head, and went in search of the kitchen. On the way, she bumped into Ryouga coming out of a closet with a confused look on her face.

            "I guess Mom and Dad moved the kitchen," she muttered. 

            Ranko rolled her eyes and grabbed the lost girl. "That's okay, I am sure I can find it. Thing is, are you really sure you wanna be in the kitchen while Akane's cooking? Maybe you'd like to finish your bath first," Ranko suggested pointedly. Waving a hand in front of her nose, she laughed, "Whew! Man, I really suggest the bath, you reek! What kinda workout were you two doing anyway? Smells like you're training for the Cat Fist!"

            Ryouga stiffened and started laughing nervously, "Cat Fist! That's funny! No, ah… you see, I was… well, we're having fish for dinner! I, uh… well, I had to clean them you see… and this is kinda funny, but, well, I sorta tripped and landed on the tray I was carrying them on, you see. So, there I was, all covered in fish guts! Silly me!"

            Again, Ranko stared at Ryouga in disbelief. "Fish guts, huh? Are you sure your brain didn't snap when you turned into a girl?"

            "Oh, no. I'm fine! Really. It's kinda nice, actually!" she gave a reassuring grin and rubbed the back of her head some more. "Anyway, you're right. I should go take a bath. I'll go, ah… you know, take a bath now. You wait right here!" she insisted, grabbing Ranko by an arm and making "stay" gestures as if Ranko was a dog. 

            Ranko looked down at Ryouga's hand on her arm, then back up in askance, "You want me to stay. Right here. You want me to just stand in the middle of the hall until you're done bathing? What? Do you expect me to get lost or something?"

            Ryouga gulped and looked off to the side. "Well, now, I dunno. In this house, that might be possible. Thing is, I really REALLY don't think you should be in the kitchen with Akane right now. Alone that is. Well, I mean…"

            "Don't bother. I don't wanna be there if I don't hafta. Trust me," Ranko shook her head meaningfully. Shrugging, she offered, "I'll just, uh, wait with Ranma then, until you get done with your bath. Oh, and… about that. There's something I should warn you about…"

            Ryouga blushed furiously, and interrupted. "Don't mention it. I think I know what you're gonna tell me."

            "Found out the hard way, huh? Sorry about that, Ryouga. I should have been the one to teach you about bein' a girl. Not that I don't think Akane can," she amended hastily, looking around for imminent hammer strikes. Seeing no threat, she continued with a shudder, "I mean, you know, about dealing with it from a guy's perspective an' all."

            "Yeah, well. Akane sort of jumped in before you could offer."

            "Yes. She's really 'helpful' that way, eh?" Ranko grinned.

            Ryouga had to smirk in reply. The expression faltered as she noticed the way Ranko had been studying her through the entire conversation. The other girl had definitely given her a good look over, scanning her with a keen and appreciative eye. It was a perfect match for the look she got from Copy-Ranko at the point where she… he at the time… had finished stripping down in the park. While unsettling, it was also quite enticing. More than enough to make Ryouga turn and flee with a startled, "Eep!"

            Ranko frowned, watching Ryouga race into the kitchen. "What did I say?" Deciding that it would take a while for Ryouga to even find the bath, much less bathe and make her way back, Ranko wandered back to check on Ranma. Making a quick inspection, she found no signs of blunt trauma. "Hmmm. I wonder what Akane clobbered her with?"

            The sounds drifting out of the kitchen pulled at Ranko's attention. It was very difficult to sit still and not rush in to see what was going on. It was a bit like knowing a train wreck was in progress, and sheer morbid curiosity was urging her to go take a look. Tempting and terrifying at the same time, she fought the impulse until a pained squawk came from Ryouga. Jumping up, Ranko headed for the kitchen door. As she neared, Ryouga passed by the opening, a swollen hand flapping in agony and a huge meat tenderizer clutched in the other. Raising an eyebrow, Ranko realized now what the pile driver sounds came from. Akane was trying her hand at steak or abalone, Ranko guessed. "I guess the fish didn't pan out," she muttered. 

            "Ryouga? Can you fetch me that bottle of cooking oil over there?" an unfamiliar voice rang out. While Ranko blinked in confusion, Ryouga passed by again, carrying a large, plastic bottle of golden oil. "Thanks, Ryo-chan!"

            "Who the hell is that?" Ranko asked herself, entering the kitchen. Looking over, she saw a very handsome boy juggling a huge wok and too many ingredients, half of which contributed to the meal spontaneously, while… Akane? It had to be Akane! No one else would pour talcum powder and a whole cup of wasabi into a dish they meant to eat! Unable to cope with the shock, all she managed was a pitifully weak, "Ohmygod. Akane's a HUNK!"

            Said hunk set down his utensils and reached for the bottle in Ryouga's hands, just as the girl was unscrewing the cap. With absolutely no comprehension of his own strength, Akane gripped the bottle hard, expecting it to be slippery from previously spilled oil, and crushed the plastic bottle in Ryouga's hands. Ryouga barely had time to squinch her eyes tightly shut before the contents spewed out and drenched her from head to toe.

            "Oh, I'm sorry Ryouga! Here! Let me help you!" Akane whipped around in search of a towel, and his eyes finally fell on Ranko. With a look of shock and instant, dreadful embarrassment, he babbled, "Ranma! What…? You… you look really nice in that dress. What the hell are you doing here!?"

            Ranko stared back, but kept track of Ryouga trying to wipe cooking oil out of her eyes, and replied, "Uh, Ranko, actually. Thanks. And, I'm here to pick up Ranma."

            Akane blinked, and turned to Ryouga. "Ranma's here too?"

            "Ah! My eyes!" she finally complained, as she blinked them open and tried to focus through the pain. "Yeah, Ranko found her unconscious outside or something. She's laying on the couch." With an increasing whimper, "Ranko, could you please lead me to the bath. I've gotta get this stuff off of me!"

            "Yeah! Sure! I'll talk to you in a minute, Akane," Ranko grabbed the exceptionally well lubricated girl and led her upstairs to the washroom. Leading her inside, Ranko helped her strip down and began to run hot water into a wash basin. "Here, the water's hot. With this much oil, cold water will just bounce off. Rinse as much of that stuff of as you can, and then we'll get the rest with soap, okay?"

            "Sure. Thanks, Ranko," Ryouga blushed as the other girl drenched her with the hot water, and used her hands to help slick the mixture off of her skin. Ranko then picked up the spray nozzle and shot more hot water over Ryouga, scraping her free hand down her back to reduce the oil to a thin sheen. When Ranko reached for the bar of soap on the floor, Ryouga jumped, "Wait! Don't use that one! The normal soap is over by the furo."

            Ranko set the block down and looked for the other bar. "Water proof soap, huh? Yeah, you wouldn't wanna add another layer of that, would you?" Picking it up, she began to wash Ryouga's back. "I'll get you started, and then let you finish up alone. I'll be outside, so just shout if you need anything. If not, I'll wait to lead you back down stairs, okay?"

            Ryouga nodded. 

            Laughing gently, Ranko let herself out of the room. Once out of sight, she balled her fist and proceeded to gnaw on it. If Ryouga happened to end up stuck like that, Ranko was confident she'd definitely still want her. The image of her naked body was already branded into Ranko's mind. As her legs went weak, she sank down along the front of the door. "Take your time!" she called back through the door. "I'll just sit here for a while, if you don't mind."

            "'Kay," Ryouga returned. She was just grateful Ranko had kept her clothes on and not offered to bathe with her. Ranko not being Ranma, and Ryouga being a girl, were apparently not enough to keep her from wanting to gobble up the lithe red-head. For fear the other girl might poke her head back in the door, Ryouga strenuously avoided touching herself anywhere too sensitive, as she lathered her body. Scrubbing hard and fast, she covered her body in a curtain of suds, then went to work on her hair. She was actually surprised at how thick the lather got by the time she picked up the sprayer and rinsed off with more hot water. Just as most of the soap and residue was sluiced away, she was startled by the onset of a familiar tingle through her body. 

            With a gasp, Ryouga froze. Slowly looking up and over his shoulder, he confirmed what he already knew. Frowning, he thought back, and confirmed his memory of being in hot water, and female, with Akane. Looking down, there was no question he was male. "Why did it wash off now? It was supposed to take a week…"

            After sitting stock still for a long time. He pulled the basin over and filled it full of cold water. A quick step over to the furo confirmed that the water inside was still hot. He had turned on the heater before taking Akane to his room. Returning to the stool, he picked up the cold water and prepared to splash himself. The crash when it dropped from his hands would be enough to bring Ranko into the room, but it was not like she would not notice it when he came out as a guy. Taking a deep breath, he lifted the basin. 

            "Cold!" he gasped, just before the tingle passed through him. 

            With eyes pinched shut, he waited for the crash of the basin. A moment later, he was still waiting. The basin was still in his hands. Frowning in disbelief,  he opened his eyes. "Yep. Still got hands," he muttered under his breath, and looked down. "Oh. That's not right. Well. They're right. But… what the hell? Why did I turn back into a girl?" Picking up the sprayer, she turned it on and wet herself down again. "Okay. Guy," he said. Changing the setting on the taps, he fired another burst of water. "Now girl. God. Cologne was right. That stuff messed up my curse," she sighed. Well, it beat being a pig. A cold chill went through her, and she quickly ran her hands over her body, and turned to stare in the mirror. With a sigh of relief, she reached a conclusion. "Good. JUST a girl. Thank you, thank you, thank you," she wept and bowed to whatever deities of fortune had finally smiled on her. 

            Looking at the bar of water proof soap, she asked herself if she wanted anyone to know about the change in her curse yet. It had definitely come too soon. There was no point telling anyone what had happened, unless they also wanted to get stuck with their new curses. It would make one hell of a surprise for Ranma! Ryouga paused. It was perfect for Ranma. It was exactly what she had promised Ranma. Ranma would think she did it on purpose, to win her away from Akane. Cringing, Ryouga realized Akane would kill her. "I am definitely going to keep this a secret for now!" she swore, reaching for the soap. When she was done, and had tested the results in the furo, she let herself out of the bathroom. Fortunately, Ranko took one look at her guilt ridden face and winked, gently ribbing her for alleged "naughty behavior" in the bath.

            Ryouga wanted to crawl under a rock. 

            "Relax, Ryouga. You're only human," Ranko punched her lightly in the shoulder. "Don't think I didn't do it too. Eventually, you'll get over it."

            "That's hard to imagine, Ranko," Ryouga blushed. Side by side, they descended the stairs, on their way back to the kitchen. Halfway there, they were distracted by the sound of Ranma's moans. Making a quick detour, they slipped into the living room where Ranma was sitting up and rubbing her head in confusion. Rushing forward and kneeling before her, Ryouga opened, "Hey, Ranma. Nice of you to wake up! Are you okay? What happened to you?"

            Ranma paused, blinking as she met Ryouga's eyes. "Where am…" suddenly her face became deathly pale and she flinched back from Ryouga's outstretched hand. "You! How could you!? Who the hell was that guy!?" she yelled, jumping to her feet. 

            "That explains it," Ranko laughed. "She took one look at Akane and passed right out! Don't worry, Ranma, I found you under the window and brought you inside."

            Ranma was staring at Ranko in shock, but Ryouga whipped around to gape at her with alarm. "Under the window!?" she screeched.

            "D-did you say… Akane?" Ranma demanded at the same time. 

            At this point, Akane wandered in, drawn to Ranma's initial outcry. Ranko, growing suddenly confused at the reactions of the people around her, was nodding in response to both questions as Akane glanced from Ryouga to Ranma. Ranko also focused on Ranma, seeing the pale of shock blossom into the red of rage. Without warning, she stormed for the front door. "I can't… I can't be here. Don't!" she swung her arm sharply, cutting off the others before they could speak. Pointing at Akane and Ryouga, who had edged closer to each other, Ranma snarled, "Don't say anything. I don't wanna hear it. I don't even wanna think about it." Turning to Ranko, she hardened her glare. "Did you know?" she demanded harshly, looking quite ready to launch fists. 

            Ranko swallowed and stared back in confusion. "Know what?" 

            Ranma shook her head. "Never mind. I'm leaving. Are you coming?"

            "That's why I am here," Ranko explained weakly. She turned to the other two, "You're spending the night, Akane? You'll be back in time for us to go, right?" she asked. 

            Before Akane could answer, Ranma shouted. "HE can stay here the rest of HIS life if he wants, but they're not coming along! Let's go!" Ranma grabbed her twin and raced out of the house. As soon as Ranko had her footing, Ranma let go of her and then sprinted toward home for all she was worth, not giving Ranko a chance to demand an explanation for Ranma's temper.       


	43. Echoes of Rejection

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Forty-Three: Echoes of Rejection

In the wake of Ranma and Ranko's departure, Akane and Ryouga stood frozen in mortification. Again and again, the fragmented conversation that followed Ranma's awakening flashed through their minds. There was no escaping it. Ranma had shown up unannounced at Ryouga's bedroom window just in time to catch them finally overcoming their nerves and shyness. It was tragic. The whole afternoon had been a nightmare, starting with the scene in the bath. Warned by Ranma's phone call that they only had one night to complete their experiment, they had both been overcome by insecurity. To take off the edge, Ryouga had suggested going into the yard and working out, to help them become more at ease with their new bodies, and Akane had jumped at the suggestion. For a while, it had worked, and the two had gradually fallen into a strenuous training session. Awkwardness had temporarily erased the gulf in their respective levels of skill, and allowed them to get the most out of sparring. They were both hot and sweaty, when a neighbor showed up to see what the ruckus was about. Trading names temporarily, for the benefit of the Hibikis' neighbor, they were rewarded when the man offered them a string of fish he had caught that day, which he was reluctant to clean and freeze. 

            Ryouga had taken them into the kitchen, while Akane took the first turn at the bath. The former lost boy was an old hand at cleaning fish, even ones as large as the neighbor had given them. Not that it helped any that she was so distracted by the return of thoughts about what was planned for later in the evening. By the time she brought her attention back to Earth, she realized she had prepared enough raw fish for an army, or a visit from the Saotome's, and set aside a small portion for dinner, placing the rest on a tray to carry to the refrigerator. As she turned from the preparation table, she inadvertently knocked over the bowl in which she had collected the fish heads and entrails. Her next step, square in the middle of the slippery mess, sent her head over heels to land, on her belly, right in the thick of the mess. 

            The sound of Ryouga crashing to the floor drew Akane—dressed only in a towel about his waist—down stairs, from where he had just come out of the bath. Together, they quickly rescued the fish, mopped up the floor, and filled the fridge. Confronted with an icebox full of fresh food, they concluded that Ryouga's mother had been by the house very recently. Poking around, Akane found the abalone and begged Ryouga for permission to fix it for dinner. It was just too exotic a dish to let spoil in the months until someone else in the family paid a visit. Ryouga agreed, packed the fish to take along in the morning and went up to prepare her bath. Of course, with Akane walking around practically naked, it was inevitable something would happen. 

            Ryouga had stripped down and settled on a stool when Akane wandered in to retrieve the clothes he had been wearing as a boy. Disgusted by the thought of slipping back into his sweat soaked outfit, he asked if Ryouga had anything he could wear. Not pausing to think of her state of dress, or lack there of, Ryouga had turned on the heater for the furo and grabbed Akane's hand to drag him into her room. Clearly, Ryouga had been trying too hard to ignore her body. It was not until she brushed against Akane, that Ryouga became self conscious. It was hard not to, given the way her body responded to the close presence of the muscular male. It had been on the back of her mind that this was probably the best way to get things started, so she was not disappointed when the two of them became side tracked from their search for clothes. It was a simple thing to let nudity, proximity and the instincts of their new bodies take charge. Apparently, Akane felt the same, and before they knew it, Ryouga was stretched out under Akane, being kissed and caressed on the bed. Just the same, they did have a pact to take things slowly, so it took them a long time to think of progressing past making out. Somewhere along the way, Akane's towel had gotten lost, so there was certainly nothing to come between them. In fact, the lack of any kind of clothing barrier had only made them more cautious. It was all they could do to keep from jumping apart every time their genitals grazed each other. 

            They had only just worked up the nerve to explore each other's adopted sex when the door bell finally sent them jumping for opposite ends of the room. Saved by the bell, they instantly realized where they had been headed and raced to get away from each other. Akane snatched up the clothes Ryouga had offered, and tossed a robe at Ryouga as he exited the room, hastily announcing his intentions to start on dinner. Ryouga tried to swallow her heart and slow her breathing before opening the front door, to see Ranko carrying Ranma. 

            Ryouga was never a picture of grace under pressure. Confronted with an incredibly sexy looking Ranko, and dreading what would happen when she discovered what happened to Akane, Ryouga proceeded to gnaw on her foot in classic style. The fact that nothing serious had happened was offset by the fact that, if Ranko had not showed up just then, something certainly would have happened soon. It was all well and good that she and Akane both needed to know if they could be a full partner to Ranma, but neither of them had really thought of what Ranma would think of their adventure if she caught them in it. Of course, that was a moot question now that she certainly believed she had!

            "We are so screwed," Ryouga finally grieved aloud. 

            "But… but we didn't actually DO anything!" Akane protested.

            "Yet…" Ryouga added pointedly. 

            There was a long silence as they turned to face each other. 

            "We could explain…" Akane suggested. 

            "It's not like Ranma isn't…" Ryouga offered at the same time. It was pointless. They were both guilty at heart, and even if they silently agreed to abort the experiment, the damage was done. The only way for them to redeem themselves was for Ranma to find out, very personally, that Ryouga was still a virgin in this form. Rather than continue discussing it, Ryouga wandered unerringly into the kitchen, threw out the corpse of Akane's stir fry, and set about making a meal from the thoroughly tenderized abalone. Akane proceeded to the guest room and began to set up a futon for herself. While thinking of the importance of sleeping alone that night, Akane sighed. The experiment had not been a complete failure. They had gone a lot further than Akane would have expected, and the only genuine disgust she felt about it was over her stupidity. Always an impulsive individual, Akane decided that adding desperation made for a fatal combination. He did not know if he or Ryouga would get a second chance with Ranma, or what their actions would do to the choice Ranma had to make. All he could do was hope that Ranma could be as forgiving of such a serious offence as she was of everything else. All that mattered now, was being in a position during the week ahead to find out. In spite of Ranma's declaration, Akane and Ryouga needed to join the others in the morning for the trip to China. 

Somewhere in the dead of night, a storm rolled in. Determined to make up for the past two days of fabulous weather, it announced itself with a booming voice and threatening fangs and claws of light. The angry heavens shook the dojo, but it seemed the pitiful mewlings of a frightened kitten compared to the fury that gripped the girl sharing Ranko's futon. It was impossible to ignore, since every time Ranma bumped into her, Ranko felt that temper spill into her. This was not a pleasing side effect of their triumvirate to discover. Unfortunately, it was just feelings and not thoughts that might explain Ranma's rage. Ranko could guess. The whole situation over at Ryouga's house had seemed fishy, but for all her suspicions, she found it too hard to believe Akane could do something like that. For the thousandth time, Ranko repeated this disbelief to her twin. In response, Ranma ground her teeth loudly, before grabbing the other girl and dragging her out of the room they shared with their mother. Not surprisingly, Fa Shen picked that moment to wander out of Akane's room, where he had been sequestered at Kasumi's insistence. 

            "Could the two of you put out any more angst?" he complained, joining them on the stairs, as Ranma led them out to the dojo. 

            "Why don't you try having your heart ripped out and split in half and tell me!" Ranma snarled under her breath.

            "Come on! You don't really believe they…" Ranko began.

            "I SAW them! I saw it all, Ranko!" Ranma cried, straining to keep her voice low. With a gesture, she silenced them and led the way out of the house. They were all damp after crossing to the dojo under the covered walkway, courtesy of the heavy wind that sent the flood of rain blasting almost sideways through the air. While Fa Shen sealed them in, Ranma stomped to the center of the training hall. Turning, she announced painfully, "I know I'm just bein' crazy. I mean, I've been doin' it with Fa Shen, so it's not like I'm anyone to talk! It's just… I can't believe it!"

            Ranko watched the other girl slump to the ground, crossing her legs and leaning straight-armed on her ankles. Leading Fa Shen over, they seated themselves in a triangle, with Ranma at the base. "I don't believe it. Maybe I don't wanna believe it, but… It's not like it'd be any surprise," Ranko began, carefully hiding her own fear that Ranma might be right. She could not feel what she did for Ryouga and not suddenly dread the outcome of something like this. Like Ranma, she was painfully aware of Ryouga's crush on Akane, and the thought of losing him to her—him, whatever—was suddenly terrifying. Shaking her head, she pressed on, "It's like, everyone's snapped. They're not just talkin' about gettin' cursed to get one of us anymore. An' none of us even has the curse anymore! It's like, I got cured, and now the curse is tryin' to take over everyone around me!"

            Fa Shen and Ranma stared at her. "What do you mean?"

            "I mean, there's somethin' not right here!" Ranko stressed, holding up her hands. "Every one's cracked! I mean, I can see Ryouga wantin' a different curse. Compared to bein' a pig, of course he'd wanna be a girl. But seriously, do either of you want the person you love to be cursed like that?"

            The other two shook their heads emphatically. 

            "So, it's not like we've asked anyone else to do this. I know we didn't make anyone jump the fence, but it's happening! As sure as the rain comes when you don't want it to, we get this insanity. It just seems… I dunno. Fishy," Ranko protested. 

            "What are you trying to say, Ranko?" Fa Shen pushed. 

            Ranma studied her twin. "You don't think they're responsible," she challenged. Ranko shook her head and looked up. "There ain't no way they're all being controlled by Jusenkyo. This ain't like being a water magnet! Ranko, I saw them together, naked, in bed. Why would they be tangled up like that if they weren't doin' it? Why would they be doin' it if they didn't want to?"

            "Why have you been doin' it with Fa Shen?" Ranko retorted. 

            "I had to! For you! How can you ask that!?"

            "No. Just listen for a second," Ranko insisted. "Before you two got out, and it was just me, with the curse, I had everyone and their brother chasin' after me. How come no one thought of trying to get a curse like mine back then? Why didn't anyone try, I mean REALLY, try to get me in bed? Why now, when the curse is gone, is it so important for everyone to try and be both, when we're all normal right now?"

            "Ranko, I think you're skipping over something," Fa Shen frowned. 

            Ranko blinked, thought back, and then nodded. "Sorry. You're right." She turned back to her twin, "Ranma, you say Ryouga and Akane were havin' sex. I don't think it's that easy. I mean, yeah, Akane's a complete tom-boy, but come on! Isn't it strange she'd turn herself into a boy an' go chasin' after a girl Ryouga, when last I saw, she wanted to kill him?" She shook her head, dismissing the idea. "Akane's doin' the same thing Shampoo did. The same thing Ukyo'd do if she got the chance. Because you had sex with Ryouga, they all have to have sex with us too, to be on the same level. Of course, because you were a girl, that tells the other girls that their only chance is to make you or me be a boy, or become boys themselves!"

            "And vice versa," Fa Shen added, referring to Ryouga.

            "And your point is?" Ranma narrowed her eyes. 

            "It's outta control!" Ranko almost shouted. However, the idea she had stumbled on was too fragile yet to follow, so she returned to the immediate question. Unfortunately, she missed what she was aiming for and brought up a more personal issue. "Do you really wanna be a girl for Ryouga? Do you remember what it was that made bein' with Ryouga even possible? It wasn't the curse, stupid. It wasn't because you wanted to be a girl! It was because you were giving up bein' Ranma!"

            That made Ranma blink. "But, I don't have to give up bein' me, anymore." Ranko nodded encouragingly. Ranma grabbed her head and tried to think. The mirror had screwed everything up to the point that nothing made sense. That had kept Ranma from really thinking about what had happened, because it was much simpler to accept the conclusions Copy-Ranko had come to, to deal with what happened to her. But, that reflection had decided to just be Ranko. Ranma could not accept that, but to deal with sleeping with Ryouga, she had been forced to go along with everything it entailed. That had seemed fine until that afternoon, when she want back to being a girl, and found it more unsettling than before. Ranma had thought about it, and thought about it, until she latched onto the idea of seeing what kind of girl Ryouga made. Going over to rescue Ryouga from Akane's cooking had just been an excuse. The truth was, the possibility of Ryouga becoming the girl had suddenly seemed appealing. It had suggested a way for Ranma to hold onto the feelings she now had, without having to sacrifice being a boy. 

            Ranma stood up and began pacing. She did not understand what had happened, but obviously her doubts about being a girl had come back. Or, maybe it was just that, once the things she had absorbed from Ranko had settled, she was adjusting back to being her normal self. The person she had always been, the guy she had always been, was coming back to the surface. He was certainly a lot more comfortable with the idea of the person he loved being a girl. The last thing he expected was for the other girl he longed for to turn into a guy. On some level, he had gone to compare the two girls and see which one really appealed to him. In an instant, Akane had become a double threat. As a boy, he confronted the female Ranma with more pressure to remain female, while at the same time, he came between Ranma and the female Ryouga. It was a sickening reversal of Ryouga coming between Ranma and Akane. 

            "If they both changed, or both wanted to change, for me… Why would they be sleeping with each other?" Ranma finally asked. That was the part that hurt. Faced with having to choose between them, striving to find a way to make that choice based on love for them, and not just her desire to reclaim her manhood, it was truly frightening to think they might just chose each other and cut Ranma out of it entirely. 

            "It's an experiment," Fa Shen blurted out. When the other two turned to him expectantly, he gestured to himself. "How do you think I ended up like this? I mean, yes, I was drugged to the gills, and Shampoo had me turned and locked before I knew it, but the reason I actually had sex with her was because I was curious to know if I even could. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was thinking about healing Ranko, and I was not comfortable about having sex with Ranma as either a boy or a girl," Fa Shen explained, self consciously. Shrugging off his own experience, he applied the wisdom he had gained to Ryouga and Akane. "It is not enough to just change sex if the reason for doing so is to be with someone who is as much a boy as she is a girl."

            Ranko nodded, "It makes a lot more sense than Ryouga and Akane changing places to be with each other. It makes more sense than the two of them having sex at all. I mean, aren't they rivals now? Isn't that awfully friendly for people who are fighting over you?"

            "That doesn't make it any better," Ranma scowled, bitterly. 

            "How do you think I feel, Ranma?" Ranko finally challenged. She did not need to point out what they had all discovered after the merging. Even without betraying what she had done, it should be obvious to Ranma that Ranko also suffered from her emotional attachment to Ranma's paramours. There was no way to deny that Ranma's relationships had started on Ranko's watch.

            Ranma bit her lip. "I'm sorry, Ranko. Honestly, I shouldn't even be involved. I suppose you're the one they should really be fighting over, huh?"

            Ranko softened. "Sorry, Ranma. Didn't mean to guilt trip you, it's just. You're not alone here. I feel it. Fa Shen feels it. It's pretty messed up, but what do you think we should do? Divvy them up? I take Ryouga, you get Akane, and Fa Shen gets her pick of the rest? I don't know why I don't run screaming away from it all. There's just no easy answers."

            "Well, that one is easy enough," Fa Shen smirked. "The problem is, the choice isn't really in your hands. Either of you. What you suggested is probably the least painful solution. It lets Ranma be himself, it lets you be yourself, and it makes everyone else happy."

            "Yeah, but somehow, I don't think Ryouga would go for being passed off onto me," Ranko voiced her real concern. Rather than let the conversation go down this path, she summarized her hypothesis. "Whatever. The thing is, I think that we're seeing the long term effects of the curse. I think, the longer people are around someone cursed like I was, the greater the chance of other people being infected by its madness. The people who fall in love with, or get obsessed by the person with the nyanniichaun curse become tempted to get one like it. So, they go to Jusenkyo to get one, and probably end up falling into some other spring, and Jusenkyo claims a whole new batch of victims. I mean, look at who's already cursed. Isn't it possible to say they're all indirectly my fault?"

            Ranma and Fa Shen stared in horror, as Ranko pointed out the demon in the design. Not that they agreed that the fault lay with Ranko. She was a child of the curse. Fa Shen was its mother, and Genma had been the one to open that Pandora's box, getting first himself, and then his son, cursed. 

            "Are you saying we should not get cursed again?" Fa Shen asked, rubbing his hands over his chest in faint despair. Unable to sit still, he sprung up and joined Ranma in pacing about. 

            Ranko frowned, watching them circling her, and climbed to her feet, so she did not have to strain her neck to follow them. As she rose, she confessed, "I can't say that. If I don't get my curse back, I'll go insane. I can't explain it." She sighed heavily, running her hands through her hair in frustration. "I suppose, we just need to make sure that everyone who is cursed gets married, or something. To each other. To some one with a matching curse. That's the only way to keep each person from attracting someone new to get cursed."

            "Or, maybe, everyone who is cursed needs to master their curse, so they're not so obvious. I mean, it just seems insane to have a bunch of us running around flipping back and forth between male and female. I think Ranko is the only person for whom the curse would be normal. The rest of us need to find a way to go back to being ourselves," Fa Shen retorted. 

            Ranma found herself in agreement. Being a girl had its uses, but when she came right down to it, it was not who she was. If she chose Ryouga, she would ultimately be forced to give up being Ranma, and thanks to Ranko, she knew just how incredibly painful that would be. More painful than hating herself for turning away from the lost boy. With a sudden sense of relief, she looked at the other two. "I don't need to get cursed if I give up Ryouga. I won't force you to take him, Ranko. He might not even want either of us after I break his heart, but I can't give up being a guy for him, and I won't use Fa Shen's body to string him on. I don't know if Akane's the right choice either, but I'll marry her. It's still a matter of honor. If she was willing to be a guy for me, I suppose that means she loves me," Ranma smiled sadly. Taking a deep breath, she added, "I suppose I love her too."

            Ranko laughed, "Bet you couldn't say that to anyone else!"

            "Yeah, well, it's not like you don't know what I really feel, right?"

            Ranko reached out and took Ranma's hands. With a more serious look, she asked, "Are you sure about this? I mean, I can take care of Ryouga. I could probably capture his attention and pull him away from you, so his heart isn't completely shattered. But, do you really want to give him up?"

            "I have to. Even if I like him as a girl, I'd hate myself for pushin' him to it. I'd always wonder if it was killin' him on the inside. I'd always be tempted…" Ranma shook her head. "Love just isn't enough. I want him to be happy, and I don't think we'll ever be happy together. There's nothing else I can do." Pulling free she began to walk away. At the door, she looked over her shoulder, "Besides, Ryouga fell in love with my girl side, Ranko. Whatever happened between me and him, we all know that's really you."

            As Ranma stepped out into the rain, Fa Shen grabbed Ranko to restrain her. Ranko looked up at him in surprise, a question plain on her face. Fa Shen looked grim. "I didn't want to say anything earlier… I don't know if Ranma noticed it or not…" he paused, collected his wits and tried to start again without fumbling. "Don't take this the wrong way, but, something happened to us during the last joining. Something has changed, and I can't quite tell what it is," Fa Shen stated cautiously. When Ranko looked down, and took a moment to offer a slight nod, Fa Shen sighed. "I don't know what you did, or if you actually did anything, maybe you just noticed it too, but it's already changing us. If that isn't going to become a bad thing, we're going to have to talk about it and decide what it means for us."

            "Are you mad at me?" Ranko asked timidly. 

            "What's there to be mad about?" Fa Shen countered. Shaking his head, he went on, "I don't know what happened, but, I can tell you feel guilty about something. It's like you knew Ranma would give up Ryouga, and had already prepared yourself to step in. If you're seeing things we're not, and that's what's bothering you, don't worry about it. You're a lot closer to the center of this than Ranma and I. That doesn't mean you're responsible for us. And it doesn't mean you're to blame if things go wrong."

            "What do you mean?" Ranko evaded. 

            "I mean, don't hate yourself because you wanted Ryouga too. Ranma knew it, and I knew it. If anything, that just made it easier to do what needed to be done. Things are not that much different than with the reflections. As long as you are there for Ryouga, and Ranma is there for Akane, none of us have to worry about failing the ones we love," Fa Shen decreed. With a rakish grin, she added, "It's weird, for me, to be caught up in all of this, but when I stopped feeling like I'd broken a promise to Akane, I knew that things were starting to fix themselves. A burden was lifted, and if you had something to do with that, then…" Fa Shen shrugged, and pulled the girl into a warm embrace. "Thank you," he whispered, before leading her back inside. 

By the time morning came, the storm had settled into a steady downpour. As people rose early, to prepare for the journey, they were surprised to discover the triplets ensconced around the breakfast table. The three had discovered it was later than they thought when they returned from the dojo, and not feeling able to return to sleep, they had plotted through the early morning hours. As breakfast was joined, Ranko made the agreed upon announcement, informing everyone that she had been healed. Without going into the details, she explained that Ranma and Fa Shen completed a circuit that had restored Ranko to full strength in one encounter. The part about Ranma and Fa Shen switching places was left entirely out. The only reason for telling the rest, was to assure everyone that Ranko was up for the journey and preempt any encouragement or expectations of Ranma and Fa Shen coupling during the trip. If everyone believed the pair had done what was necessary, perhaps no one would be stalking the couple every time they wandered out of sight. 

            Nodoka had taken the news well, under the circumstances. 

            Those who were going to China assembled in the dojo, along with their traveling gear, including Ryouga and Akane, who raced in breathlessly and caused a sensation in reaction to Akane's transformation. Ukyo, who had closed her business for the week, insisting on going along, quickly nabbed Akane, shocked and impressed that her rival had actually gone through with such a thing. Ryouga and Akane were briefed by Cologne on the dangers they both faced, repeating the lecture she had given the others the night before. Upon collecting the rest of the Instant Nyanniichaun packets from Ryouga, one packet was distributed to Akane, Ukyo and Shun, each, as insurance. Since they were all normally girls, if it became necessary, they could use the mixtures to restore themselves permanently to normal. In Shun's case, Fa Shen would have to be restored to her former self before he could return to being Shampoo, but as the rest of the packets were being destroyed, it was appropriate to give him one just in case. 

            Nodoka, even though she was coming along, assured everyone she needed no insurance, since she had no intention of going any where near the springs of sorrow. In spite of that, a few extra packets were held by Fa Shen. If the Kaisuifuu could not restore him to normal, it would at least present him the opportunity to use the instant instead. For her part, Ranma was still carrying the Instant Nanniichaun packets Shampoo had given her, and could use water proof soap to return to manhood. It would of course be simpler to just swap bodies with Fa Shen, but that would reveal their secret. As long as they both changed sexes, the end result would be the same. 

            When they were ready to go, Ranko went about the training hall, prompting each person to hold onto their gear tightly and then letting them look into the compact. Nabiki and Kasumi were staying in Nerima, but they would accompany Nodoka to the airport. Ranko gathered the last of the gear and provisions, kissed her mother on the cheek, and handed her the compact, reminding her that she must not lose it. With that, she looked in the mirror and joined the rest inside to spend a long, tedious wait through the flight. 

            Not surprisingly, the group of teens broke up into small groups to talk, with Ranma and Fa Shen bedding down to catch up on lost sleep. Ranko made her way to Ryouga's side, eager to find out what really happened the night before, and see what she thought about being a girl. Ukyo continued to engage Akane, while Mousse and Shun continued a tense and private discussion about their marriage. Cologne saw no reason to intrude on any of it, so she made herself comfortable, pulled out a large book and settled back to read. In spite of everything being calm and quiet on the surface, the crystal faceted chamber hummed with tension. There had been no time for Ryouga and Akane try and clear up the mess they were in with Ranma, when they arrived, and they both took Ranma's retreat into slumber as evidence of rejection and enduring anger. In spite of Ranko's assurances, that Ranma understood what they had done, and why, Ryouga found it impossible to relax and hope for the best. Several times, in the hours that followed, Ranko had been forced to draw upon Fa Shen's knowledge of shiatsu to poke Ryouga out of a cloying depression. It disturbed her that Ryouga was indifferent to her repeated warnings that generating a lot of heavy chi—or really, chi of any sort—only hastened the deterioration of the temporary curse. 

            "Ryouga, if you keep this up, you're gonna get stuck with a girl curse!" she hissed, after the umpteenth time. 

            "You say that like it's a bad thing," Ryouga frowned. 

            "Of course it's a bad thing!" Ranko cried. "We're going to Jusenkyo. If you don't screw up your curse, you can use the Nanniichaun to get cured!"

            "If I can turn into a girl, I won't need to be cured," Ryouga retorted. 

            "I know you think it's better than being a pig, but you can't seriously want to turn into a girl, can you?" Ranko challenged, feeling a little disturbed. "I mean, seriously, do you really think you could live like that?"

            "You did. It's not like I don't know what it's like to live with a curse. And I don't need to explain why I'd prefer this, do I?"

            "That's not the same thing. The curse is normal for me. I'm a mix of Ranma and Fa Shen. I'm just saying, neither of them wants to get cursed again. They're just trying to get back to normal."

            "Ranma's going to be a guy, full time?" Ryouga gasped. Ranko bit her lip and nodded. Ryouga looked down in pain, "Well, then I really do have to be a girl. It just won't work otherwise."

            Ranko suddenly found the room closing in on her. Was this a good time to tell Ryouga what Ranma had decided? If Ryouga had not put it together from what Ranma said, about locking herself in guy form once Fa Shen was back to normal, would Ryouga even listen to her? "Listen, Ryouga. There's something we need to talk about," she introduced, licking her lips nervously. 

            Ryouga leveled a suspicious glare. 

            Looking around, and seeing no one else was interested in their conversation, Ranko proceeded to explain some of the finer points of her ordeal, exactly who and what the copies had been, and what had happened when she was healed. She obscured parts of it, but spelled out her conviction that she had reclaimed the parts of her that were in Ranma and Fa Shen, from the copies, when she was healed. "I know this is going to be a little hard for you to believe, but Copy-chan was really me, Ryouga. The part of me that was all girl. The part of me that is like Fa Shen. Now, I'm not saying you have to love me," she added hastily, seeing Ryouga beginning to panic. "All I am saying is, the only part of her that is left in Ranma is the memories. Ranma still loves you, but he doesn't have her there making it easy for him to be a girl."

            "So, that's why he doesn't want the curse anymore? He doesn't need to be a girl anymore?" Ryouga swallowed in pain. 

            "Not like when she was still inside him, no. Not enough to go back to having the curse turning him inside out all the time. I don't know what it's like turning into a pig, Ryouga, but believe me, switching back and forth between being a guy and a girl really messes you up," Ranko insisted. "That's why I don't think you should be so eager to get stuck that way."

            "They, why are you so eager to get cursed again?"

            "Well, I don't know if I can tell you so you understand. When I was Ranma, the curse messed me up 'cuz I was trying too hard to be a boy all the time. The thing is, with Fa Shen waking up and everything, and waking up myself, I sort of am both. Right now, it's the same as when I was cursed, I have a part of me that's constantly fighting the body I am in. With the curse, that part of me can get to be a boy from time to time and I don't start freaking out," Ranko gripped herself tightly. 

            Ryouga tightened her hands on her thighs, and sighed, "I guess I know what you mean. I like this a lot more than being a pig, but… Sometimes when I move the wrong way, I suddenly realize what's different and I go a little crazy."

            "Right! So, believe me, it's much better for you if you just get cured while we're at Jusenkyo," Ranko emphasized, meeting Ryouga's eyes intently. The only flaw in her conviction was that, with her plans to get cursed, the idea of Ryouga matching her curse was so incredibly tempting. Unwilling to let her desires lead the lost boy to harm, she was even more determined to encourage Ryouga NOT to embrace her current form. 

            Once more, depression and anxiety began to grip Ryouga. "But, I can't just give up!" she lurched forward, squeezing her eyes shut and tensing all over. 

            Ranko felt she was losing her. Ryouga was just not taking the suggestion to focus her feelings on Ranko. Searching her mind for another approach, she brightened, "Hey. Do you remember what I thought was going to happen to me? How I thought Fa Shen would be set free?" she asked, not even realizing how she had patched into Copy-Ranko's experiences. 

            "Ra… What?" Ryouga snapped around to stare at her. "How do you…?"

            Still on that other track, Ranko took a deep breath, "I thought I'd be merging with Ranma-chan, but since I didn't know what that would do to me, I had sex with you. Things didn't really go as planned, but aside from Ranma and Fa Shen being in the wrong bodies, that's basically what happened, Ryouga."

            "Ranko?" Ryouga breathed. In a louder, more desperate voice, "You're MY Ranko?"

            Ranko nodded, timidly. Ryouga's head whipped around to find Ranma, then she looked back. Her brain was struggling to deal with the impact on her emotions. Over the previous day, she had come to terms with the idea that she had fallen in love with an illusion, and strained to accept that her love stretched to the underlying truth. The morning before, Mousse had forced Ryouga, who was grieving for the loss of Copy-Ranko, to see that he loved the boy the girl had been. Having made that leap, it was simply mind boggling to think that the girl had not been a lie. True, he had instantly recognized Ranko as the female version of Ranma, but of course she had nothing to do with what happened on the date. Because of Mousse forcing her to accept her love for Ranma, Ryouga had forced herself not to transfer her injured love to Ranko. When she tried now, she discovered she could not make a clean break from Ranma. The effort was like cleaving her heart in two. With a cry of agony, Ryouga rocked back and turned away from Ranko. 

            Cologne looked up from her book, frowning. Akane, Ukyo, Shun and Mousse paused in their conversations to glance over at the two girls as well. Before they could go investigate, Cologne waved them off, setting her book down and perching on her staff for a better view.

            "Ryouga?" Ranko reached out hesitantly. 

            The dark haired girl shook her head and flinched away. She needed a moment to understand the pain, the conflict of trying to see who she truly loved. It was not that she was horrified to have Ranko suddenly wake up to what had happened that night. It was not that she did not want Ranko. The horror was that she had accepted her love for Ranma—for a boy. Worse, that she had become a girl for his sake, for the sake of his love. In the process, in her desperation to find out if she could make it real, embrace womanhood entirely, she had betrayed him. Forced him to turn away from her. "It's too late," she gasped under her breath. As it came out, she realized she was about to confess to Ranko what had happened to her curse. She was about to turn to the person who was reaching out to her, and find out if she, with her intention to embrace her old curse, could accept what she had become. Unfortunately, those words had a totally different effect on Ranko.

            Ranko choked on hearing them. She stiffened and her blood turned to ice. She flinched back as if she had been stabbed. Unable to even speak, she pushed herself back, almost teleporting away from Ryouga. With shuddering limbs, she hastily rose and retreated, cursing herself for her impetuousness.

            "Ranko?" Ryouga rolled over and stared at her, as she recoiled. Frightened by the sight of the pale, trembling red-head, she lunged to her knees. "Ranko! Wait…"

            "No. No, Ryouga," she hid her face, holding up a warding hand. "I… I don't want to hear it. I'm… I am sorry." She jumped up and hurried over to her gear, pulled out her sleeping bag and crawled into it, pulling the top over her head to hide her shame and grief. She should not have confronted Ryouga with this so soon. She should have let Ranma explain it to her. She should have been more patient. Instead, she had blown it completely. 

            Ryouga, unable to understand what was going through Ranko's mind, felt as powerfully rejected. With her mind paralyzed by shock, she did not even know what she had said to so deeply offend the girl of her dreams. If she were not so numb and horrified, she would have dropped into a depression so severe the crystal chamber would have shattered trying to contain it. All she could think was that she had turned away from the woman she loved, lured by the man she thought she had been, and turned away from herself, the man she had been. Tightening her arms around her body, she finally saw it as a curse. For her own stupidity, she suddenly felt she deserved it. 

            The end of this scene disturbed the others. Shun, Mousse, Ukyo and Akane had all silently followed Ranko's retreat with their eyes, and then turned to stare at Ryouga, who slumped against the wall looking like a victim of Akane's cooking. Cologne had kept her eyes on the lost girl, musing grimly on what appeared to have happened. While the scene had all the ear marks of a lovers' spat, she had not believed anything was going on between Ranko and Ryouga. Having ignored most of the girls' conversation, the matriarch had nothing to base a suspicion on. There was really just the aftermath on Ryouga's face. A glimpse over to where Ranko was doing her best to hide from the world was no more enlightening. Wordlessly, Mousse rose to go to Ryouga's side, as Akane and Ukyo went over to see if they could lure Ranko from out of hiding. Biting back tears, Ranko roughly announced that she needed to catch some sleep. After studying Ryouga for a while in silence, Mousse tried to break through the girl's stupor with gentle, reasonable words. In both cases, the wounded parties remained unresponsive, and the remaining teens gave up with sighs of defeat. To escape the tension, they also went to lay down and seek a few hours of slumber. 

            Cologne picked up her book, having little need for extra sleep at her age. By her reckoning, there was significant time remaining in their isolation. In the outside world, Nodoka was making her connecting flight from Hong Kong to Shanghai. In a few more long hours, they would all be in China, where Nodoka could set the others free and they could start on the overland leg of their trip. Hopefully, once they were out on their feet, exercise would loosen the youths up and Cologne could pry what was happening out of one of them. It would not be a bad thing to find out what romantic intrigue had evolved now, and certainly, a match between Ranko and Ryouga would help settle things nicely. It was just a matter of finding out what sort of misunderstanding had reared its head and nudging it out into the open. Tuning out a chorus of snores, Cologne tucked her nose back in her book and dismissed the matter for the moment. 

            About an hour later, the grumbling of Ranma's stomach drowned out the snores, and Cologne broke into the provisions to retrieve the bentos Kasumi had provided for the flight. Not even Ranko was impervious to the call for lunch, though she grabbed her food and huddled up with Ranma and Fa Shen with her back pointedly facing Ryouga. After seeing Mousse and Shun pull the lost girl over to eat with them, Cologne settled in with the triplets, to hear Ranko's brief explanation to her siblings, when Fa Shen raised the question.

            "What are you being so rude to Ryouga for?"

            "Feh. I'm not trying to be rude," Ranko dismissed, shoveling food into her mouth angrily. Pausing to chew and swallow, she set her bento down and explained, "I just made a royal ass of myself coming on to Ryouga. I'd just… I'd rather not have to deal with her right now. If she says it's too late… well, it's not like I can do anything about it."

            "What do you mean, it's too late?" Ranma asked. 

            "Sorry, Ranma. Ryouga was getting depressed about last night, and while I was trying to convince her you weren't mad at her, I sorta let slip that you… well… picked being a guy over bein' with Ryouga," Ranko blushed sheepishly. 

            "Jeez! If you let it out like that, it's no wonder Ryouga didn't wanna have anything to do with you!" Ranma scowled. 

            "It wasn't like that," Ranko squeaked in protest. "I was tryin' to get her to calm down and stop generating heavy chi. If she doesn't put a lid on it, she'll be stuck with a girl curse, but she figured that would just make her more attractive to you. I was tellin' her that even you don't want that curse, and that's sorta how it slipped out. To make it up to her, I told her I picked up the memory of the date, to let her know that if you dumped her I cared too!"

            "That's your idea of coming on to someone?" Fa Shen deadpanned. 

            "Fa Shen!" Ranko stared at him, hurt. 

            Ranma studied her twin thoughtfully, guessing how the conversation must have gone and nodding. "So, you tried to tell her that, well… what I said earlier, you're the real girl side, hopin' she'd be interested in you."

            Ranko nodded glumly, "Yeah, but then she falls over, wailing like I ripped out her heart, and says it's too late. I just… I completely blew it!" Hugging her knees and burying her face in her lap, she retreated once more from the agony. Ranma looked down uncomfortably, while Fa Shen leaned over to hug Ranko. Ranko unfolded and leaned into his side, taking comfort from his presence. Sniffing, and holding back unshed tears, she added, "I'll be okay. I just… It hurts. I didn't think it'd hurt her like that."

            Cologne finally spoke up, "Don't worry, young one. It may not be as bad as it seems. If anything, it probably came as more of a surprise to Ryouga. I know I am surprised to hear you are interested in the boy. From your track record, you are not exactly one to be so decisive in relationships."

            "Yeah, well, I've got a little bit more to go on with Ryouga than I did during the whole fiancée mess. At least with, er, him, there was a moment when I was certain he loved me. That damn mirror sorta screwed that up…" Ranko shook her head. "If we had gotten back to the mirror and let Ranma and Fa Shen out into the reflections that way, there wouldn't be any confusion between me and Ranma for him."

            "Well, if your alter-ego hadn't slept with him, that would have helped too," Fa Shen quipped. His perspective on the date, now that he remembered it, was a bit more objective than Ranma's or Ranko's. It also allowed him to see that Ranko had completely embraced the copy who borrowed her identity. It was like the passions had shifted from Ranma to her. A studied glance showed that Ranma did not seem to particularly mind passing the torch to her either. 

            "You're right. But, can you really blame her?" Ranko looked up. 

            The conversation stalled as they all focused on their meals. There was something disturbing about the way she snapped in and out of past-Ranko and present-Ranko. They all grasped the idea that the reflections had been parts of Ranko, but it took some mental adjusting to follow the fact that she had somehow connected to her offshoots. To Cologne, it was sure evidence of some form of mental joining, such as had occurred when the copies reentered the mirror, and linked to the most probable cause, Ranma and Fa Shen's intercourse, she found herself wondering what else the trio had gained through healing Ranko. The secret they had been keeping was beginning to betray itself. 


	44. Entangled Unraveling the Mess

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Forty-Four: Entangled Unraveling the Mess

It was late in the evening when the expedition reached its starting point in Shanghai. While it technically would have been a shorter flight to, and overland journey from, the capital city of Beijing, Cologne had suggested the round about route via Hong Kong to avoid the seat of the communist government. Also, the amazons had agents and allies in Shanghai, one of whom met Nodoka at the airport and escorted her to a safe house—more of an apartment over a shipping warehouse—where the others could safely be released from the trap mirror. Because travel in Mainland China was severely restricted, being heavily regulated by the government, the amazons had long established something of an underground railroad by contracting their services as protection for carefully chosen trading companies. Thus, the first leg of their journey would be assumed by Cologne and four of the five girls riding on a caravan delivering goods to the interior. They had just enough time on their arrival to gather for a meal, renew their provisions, outfit the escort as proper amazons, and return the rest of the party to the mirror, before the convoy of trucks departed. 

            It was a boring and tedious job for Ranko, Ranma, Ryouga and Mousse, only made worse by the fact that they were divided among the four vehicles. Each girl had nothing to do but sit in a cab containing just herself and the driver, except in Ryouga's case, since Cologne rode with her in the lead vehicle to ensure that she did not expose herself as a fraud. Ranma seemed to be having greater ease accessing Fa Shen's memories, and would respond automatically in Mandarin when addressed in that language, while Ranko seemed to have completely assimilated their predecessor's amazon heritage. On the plus side, the drivers were used to amazons riding shotgun, and knew better than to harass them in any way. Like the rest in the mirror, they had nothing but time to reflect on the events of the past few days, and worry about the week to come. The caravan moved off into the night, and would stop only to refuel and change drivers until they reached Zhengzhou, about a thousand kilometers to the northwest, where the cargo would be transferred to a boat headed up the Yellow River. The biggest complication was finding a way to let people out of the mirror at rest stops to relieve themselves and get in a hot meal. This was simplified by transferring most of the gear to one of the trucks, so that only people were liable to get dumped out when the trap was opened—usually between the parked vehicles, where few witnesses could possibly see their appearance.

            In the usual haste of these periods of liberty, there was no time for idle conversation. Those who spent most of their time in the mirror had plenty of time for conversation there. Nodoka took advantage of the opportunity to get to know the original members of the fiancée squad in greater detail, and fret over the things she learned about past occurrences and future intentions. Akane and Shun both got their ears thoroughly chewed off by Nodoka, for letting their desperation push them into becoming boys, but Ukyo got the worst of it for admitting her intention to get a genuine curse if it would help her win Ranko. It did give her an opportunity to enlighten Nodoka completely about her engagement to Ranma, the theft of her dowry, and her resultant exile from womanhood. 

            "So the fact is," she had concluded, "My options are pretty limited. I can marry Ranma and be a woman again, accept Ranko as a substitute and maybe be a man for her, or go ronin and live the rest of my life as a man. I think marrying Ranma would be fine, but I don't expect to be favored over Akane and I'm already in love with Ranko from everything that's happened this year." 

            "Well, this is a problem," Nodoka complained wearily. "I might be able to make reparations for the sto- lost dowry, but it certainly does not mend all the suffering you have endured. At the same time, Ranma and Ranko are both overburdened with other suitors. I have been given to believe that one of them will be declared Ryouga's wife at the end of this journey, so I am at a loss for what to say to you, Ukyo-chan."

            "Me too, Mrs. Saotome. Me too," Ukyo sighed. Still, she could not lose hope. From what she had seen, Ryouga was on the outs with Ranma and Ranko. Rather than say something and jinx it, she held her peace. In spite of her belief that she would be fine if she took the curse, all she had to do was look at Shun and Akane to see the potential danger. If she did get cursed, there was every chance she could lose her womanhood for good. It was a sobering thought that kept her close company during the days and nights on the road. 

            On the day they reached Zhengzhou, and transferred to the boat, Ranma finally confronted her mother with the conclusions she had reached while she had nothing to do but think or sleep. Seeking out an isolated spot on the deck of the river barge, she leaned against the rail and talked to Nodoka about the impact of Ranko's memories on the boy she had been. While she would live with the marks of that year, the experiences that had come with it, the boy she had been was fighting to reassert himself. Turning into a girl in love had done nothing to prevent that from happening, and mysteriously, most of the passion of that night had evaporated. 

            "I'll probably always love Ryouga, and I'll wonder if I really should have been a girl, but the fact is, I grew up a boy—your son—and I can't stand to lose that," she finally got to the point. "As much as it hurts, I can't chose Ryouga if it means I can't be your son. An' since that's what's really bothering me, I can't pretend I picked Akane over him. I picked me, Mom. An' I…" she sighed and blew her bangs out of her eyes. 

            "Are you trying to say you don't want to marry Akane, Ranma?"

            "I dunno. I mean, I'm not gonna fight the engagement, but I think what I want to say is I just don't wanna get married. I'm just not ready for something like that," she confessed. "I wish you didn't hav'ta push this so much. Why can't I start with just seeing if I can deal with just havin' Akane as a girlfriend?"

            "Would you like that?" Nodoka smiled gently. 

            "Well, yeah, I guess," Ranma frowned. "I do like the violent maniac, in spite of everything, and for such a macho tomboy, she can be kinda cute, y'know? But, what if she doesn't really want a guy like me? I mean, I know I'm pretty sexy an' all, when I'm a guy—well, I'm pretty hot as a girl too," she laughed, posing almost instinctively, before continuing. "Anyway, it's not like I don't think she could want me. I just don't know if she really likes me, or if she's just freaked about losin' Ranko."

            "You want to start the relationship fresh," Nodoka surmised. 

            Ranma nodded. "Right now, I'm mostly worried about getting Fa Shen fixed an' goin' back to bein' a guy. I suppose I coulda done that already, but…" Ranma shrugged, and risked a bit of the secret, "If something goes wrong, and she can't get turned back into a girl, then the next best hope is to find some way of trading bodies with her."

            Nodoka placed a reassuring hand on the girl's shoulder. "To be honest, I've been wondering if that wasn't possible myself," she confessed with a squeeze. "It says a lot to me that you put that much thought into doing the right thing. I suppose your father tried to push the marriage in the hopes that it would prove your manliness in spite of the curse. I know I would have wanted that reassurance if you were still in Ranko and stuck with the curse. I know I was rushed into marriage, and it seems normal enough, but perhaps I did not know my husband well enough before marrying him."

            "I'd think so. I can't believe you'd marry him knowin' what he's like!"

            Nodoka chuckled. "Well, he and I will have words, I can assure you that. But, for now, if being true to yourself is enough to make you declare yourself my son, I won't hold you to the rest. You might need the time to consider the prospect of marriage, either to Akane or to Ukyo," she modified, revealing what she had learned about Ukyo's claim. "That poor girl. Marrying you is the only hope she has of restoring her honor. Even if she wants Ranko more, to win her she must lose everything. Keep that in mind, my son. It may yet come down to who you would harm the least. To that end, I will let you resolve the matter for yourself, if you can."

            Ranma sighed. "She is my best friend. I'm glad you're not ignoring her like Pops does. With him, it's all about Akane. Though, to be honest, sometimes I think it's about Soun," Ranma put in thoughtfully. Seeing the odd stare from Nodoka, Ranma explained, "I dunno, really, but it's like… Pops has broken just about every promise he's ever made. I get the feeling that this one promise to join the schools is like his only chance to redeem himself. As if keeping this one promise will save him from bein' a complete waste of a human being. That it proves deep down he really does have some honor."

            On the opposite end of the boat, Ranko slipped up to Fa Shen's side, watching the boy stare at the countryside. She did not really need to ask what was on her male twin's mind. She could simply look and see the ghost of a world that had passed while Fa Shen was entombed in the spring. It was only at moments like these that she was truly aware of the shock her former self endured with every new thing he confronted in the modern world. Ranko's memories had given him a long pole to help him keep his balance, but the culture shock was still there. Looking at his old home, his heart could not help but break to see that the world he knew was dead and lost, and more than a thousand years worth of mourning waited to capture him at every turn. 

After five days of scrambling madly across more than half of China's width, the group finally reached their destination in the heart of the Bayankala Mountain Range. Because of the compact, it was possible to go non stop from Zhengzhou to Quinghai Province by having most of the party sleep and camp in the crystal chamber while pairs took turns carrying it as they traveled by boat, foot or the wayward farm truck. The deeper they got into the interior, the more travel by foot was mandated, but without the need to actually stop for rest, there was always someone fresh enough to run as the mirror's courier. In fact, the high level of exertion was an additional plus, since it taxed the young martial artists' endurance and increased their metabolisms, contributing to the break down of their curses' locks. With the exception of Shun, who had switched from the soap lock to a chisuiiton lock, so that Shampoo would not be executed on the spot if she reappeared, it was expected that Mousse, Akane or Ryouga would revert back to normal by their next bath or dousing. 

            Because of the way the pairs were chosen, to minimize conflicts and distractions, neither Ryouga nor Akane were given a chance to speak to either Ranma or Ranko alone, and clear the air between them. Furthermore, the two outcasts of the party were never paired together by their own decision, with Akane typically partnered with Ukyo, and Ryouga constantly attended by Mousse. Strangely, Shun and Fa Shen seemed to have come to an understanding and put their sexual misadventure behind them. Because of his condition, Akane was often a third to Shun and Fa Shen during meals and rest periods, as the former girls compared notes on being boys. 

            As usual, Ranko and Ranma had pulled a double shift as runners, moving with a syncopated grace and efficiency through the more familiar routes of the last leg of the journey. Both of them felt like they were going stir crazy from their time inside the mirror, so they made the most of their freedom by turning much of it into a running battle to hone their skills and work on their weaknesses. Having both switched to native outfits tailored to their female forms, pretty much anyone who saw them flash by took them for a pair of amazons and did their best to stay out of their way. This also meant that word of their passage flew through the countryside, along with descriptions of their skill and beauty, to reach the ears of local amazons who might have pegged one of them as the now infamous "female Ranma" of last spring's tournament upset. Instead, deciding there could not be two such girls, they sent out scouts to challenge the outsiders who had the gall to "pass themselves off" as amazons. 

            Thus, as the twin red-heads made the turn that would deliver them to the Guide's hut in the valley of cursed springs, they blew through a stunned contingent of warrior maidens who cursed profusely and took chase. Too excited about being so close to the end of the frantic journey, Ranma and Ranko did not even notice they were being chased. Pouring on a burst of speed, they sprinted down the road, quickly leaving the war party in the dust. This bought them enough time for a short, stunned encounter with Prince Herb, his retainers, Lime and Mint, and an assortment of Musk warriors, when the two girls stumbled through their camp on the fields at the mouth of the valley. The confrontation began as Herb emerged from his silk pavilion intent on paying the Guide a visit. One look at the twins, as they came to a panting halt, leaning slightly against each other for support and staring at the armed men who moved instantly to surround them, spurred Herb into motion. 

            "Surely my eyes do deceive me!" he called out in disbelief. 

            "Herb!" the two called out in smiling surprise. 

            "Good! You got here early!" Ranma picked up. 

            "Hey! Remember me?" Ranko grinned. 

            "Ranma! By the Dragon, you've been twinned!" Herb twitched, an odd grin coming to his lips. "Lime! Bring me the ladle!" 

            Ranma and Ranko's eyes bulged. "N-now, wait… just hold on a second." They both backed up a step, hands up in warding gestures as they tried to figure out what they had done to earn such a threat. As soon as they moved, they were hemmed in by a circle of spears. 

            "Here it is, Herb!" Lime announced, handing Herb the Chisuiiton. 

            "Excellent!" Herb seized it and dipped the magic ladle into the bucket of water. "And to think, you came to me!"

            "Hey, don't do that! What's the big idea!" the girls cried frantically. 

            Herb grunted and simply lashed out with a ladle full of water, forcing the girls to twist desperately to avoid getting splashed without skewering themselves on the razor sharp spearheads. "The idea, O worthy adversary, is that I am not interested in marrying a man. Thus," he lashed out with the water again.

            "Marry!" they shouted, dodging again. "What kinda nonsense is that!?"

            "Come on! We're only here to borrow the Kaisuifuu!" Ranko pleaded.

            "And besides, we're both already stuck this way!" Ranma wailed. 

            "What is this!?" Herb straightened. "Mint! Hot water!"

            "Right away!" the wolf-blooded boy raced away. In a flash, he returned and jumped into the ring of spears, pouring hot water over the girls' heads as he landed. Turning he looked at them, "Herb! They're still women!" He stared at their chests for but a moment, before meeting their eyes with a grin.

            "Interesting," Herb mused, before handing the magic ladle over to boy in the tiger striped outfit. In the background, the party of amazons burst on the scene, and came to a startled halt. The dozen warrior maidens gaped at the score of Musk warriors surrounding their prey and snarled through clenched teeth. It had not pleased them to be led to the edge of Jusenkyo, and it disturbed them more to arrive in a Musk encampment. Barely had they sorted themselves out when some of the men turned and stood them off with their weapons. A runner was immediately dispatched to warn the tribe, while the rest edged forward, straining to hear the exchange. "I see that Cologne made use of what I left her. How strange that she would implore me to bring the Kaisuifuu to release you, when she was the only one who could lock your curse. But, tell me first, when did you fall into the Chaunshontsuniichaun!?"

            A call from one of the outer guards alerted his captain to the amazon's presence, causing the man to signal for his prince's attention. Herb held up a hand to stall the twins' response and bent his head to hear the report. At Herb's command, the captain hurried over to parlay with the amazons, coming back toward Herb a moment later with the blue-haired leader of the hunting party. While this was happening, Herb turned back to the twins and prompted them to answer his question. He noted that the amazon's eyes locked on the red-heads as she approached, and did not stray toward him.

            Ranma and Ranko looked at each other. Ranko shrugged and answered. "I guess the old ghoul didn't really explain anything. I didn't get cursed by the Chaunshontsuniichaun, actually. It was the Mirror of Broken Souls," she paused to see if he knew what she was talking about. Seeing him scowl, searching his memory to find the reference, Ranma cut in to quickly describe the mirror's history and powers. The amazon, waiting for her turn to speak, listened in, taking the opportunity to become informed about her quarry. Once Herb nodded, accepting the cause of Ranma's split, Ranko continued. "Also It turns out this is my natural form. Pops doped my mom with Togenkyo water so I'd be born a boy. Now, what's this about wantin' to marry me?"

            Herb chuckled, taking in the annoyed glare she was giving him. Nor did he miss the look of surprise and intrigue on the waiting amazon's face. "Truly, you say. This is how you were born? How? How could you be so perfect a match for Her?" he demanded in puzzled disbelief. 

            Ranko's eyes narrowed. "Don't tell me this is because of Fa Shen!"

            Herb's eyes widened. "You know Her name." Equal surprise registered on the face of the blue-haired amazon, who barely contained her reaction. Suddenly, the dragon prince realized it was no longer merely an inconvenience to have amazon witnesses present. With a clipped gesture, he directed the guards to herd the rest of the amazon party into their midst, where they could be more easily detained. If he could just keep control of the situation, maybe he would not be forced to kill them all and start a war. 

            Oblivious to the maneuvering going on around her, Ranko rolled her eyes, "Well, duh! I AM her reincarnation, you idiot." This was simply too much for the first amazon. In any society, it was unlikely for every member to be fluent in all the lore and history of her people, but there were those few names and legends even the most ignorant could recognize. There had already been rumors about the Council's interest in the red-head who defeated Shampoo, and many waited to find out if Cologne would succeed in helping her great-granddaughter bring home the boy she had turned out to be. It had been wondered, mostly in humor, what the boy would think if the unlikely happened and he was proven to be what the girl before her was claiming. Lunging forward, to challenge what Ranko was saying, she forced the captain to gain an amazon wife. 

            Ranko could not help but turn to stare when the captain exploded into motion, catching the distracted amazon off guard and rendering her unconscious. No one else bothered to notice the commotion. Ranma was too busy staring down Herb angrily, still upset at the marriage threat. She just took Ranko's distraction for an opportunity to put in her two cents. "Geez, Cologne really didn't tell you anything! Anyway, that's who the Kaisuifuu is for. Fa Shen is locked as a boy," Ranma revealed, totally glossing over the little matter of Fa Shen's resurrection and following transformations.

            Herb flinched back. "What!?"

            "Maybe we need to explain this," Ranko suggested, dead pan. Turning to Herb, she scowled, "But first, why don't you tell us where you get off thinkin' you can just lock us as girls and we're gonna fall all over ourselves to marry you!?"

            Herb sighed. Looking over, he noticed the captain of the guard's predicament. The rest of the amazon party had just been ushered to the center of the gathering to see what had happened. Two of them were instantly at the blue-haired girl's side, while the rest narrowed hateful glares on the captain, who was protesting his victory. As soon as the woman woke up, things were going to get even more complicated. Rather than witness that scene, Herb returned his attention to Ranma and Ranko and concluded, "As you are, it seems, just women at present, perhaps we should adjourn to my quarters to speak." 

            Gesturing to his men, to keep the amazons under control, he turned and led the way into the silk pavilion. The recently defeated amazon's maroon-haired second loudly demanded to come along. With a nod to Mint, Herb directed him to bring the girl along. Marched in at spear point, with Lime holding them firmly by an upper arm, Ranma and Ranko had little choice but to follow. As they were seated on cushions, Herb resumed speaking. "When I returned home from my quest to recover the Kaisuifuu, I was compelled to relate my adventures to my father. When I reached the point where I had locked you in your female form, for your insolence, my father interrupted and took me into his private gallery. There, he showed me a painting of Fa Shen, and asked me if that was the form you had taken. To my surprise, there was a perfect resemblance. It was then that I was told of the legend of the Nyanniichaun's creation."

            Ranko and Ranma exchanged looks. 

            Herb noticed the three girls were not curious, and presumed they had all heard the tale before. For the benefit of the new amazon observer, he simplified matters by repeating what Ranko and Ranma had just told him. Herb was satisfied to see that she was as disturbed by the news as he. If they were speaking the truth, about being reincarnations of Fa Shen, and that She was locked in male form… From what they said about the Mirror of Broken Souls, there could be one more "Ranma" and logic dictated it would be a male. Picking up this thread, he asked, "If what you said about this mirror is true, why do you think the Kaisuifuu would help a male copy become female?" Before either Saotome could open her mouth, he interrupted himself. "Fa Shen, you said. Fa Shen is locked as a boy…" He frowned. "Ah, so that is where the Togenkyo antidote comes in. Some how, all three of you have been stripped of male form. I take it you tried to combine Instant Nanniichaun and chisuiiton water to regain your manhood and something went wrong," he deduced, thoughtfully.

            Ranma and Ranko nodded. "Something like that," Ranko hedged uncomfortably, rather than try to explain precisely how Fa Shen had been seduced by Shampoo. 

            The maroon-haired amazon cut in, "Is it true? Has Fa Shen come back to life, as the legends of the springs suggest?" The twins turned their attention to her for a moment and hesitantly nodded again. 

            Herb looked up to the heavens and muttered a silent oath. The amazons believed strongly in reincarnation, and quickly accepted the return of a lost "sister" to the tribe. However, there were very few human based springs, and the possibility of an actual resurrection ridiculously slim. Almost impossible odds, but the chance was worth investigating. He nodded to himself and resumed, "Very well then. It might be that I will not wed either of you. But I will get to that later. I will tell you now, when my father learned that the Sacred Spring had given us a 'daughter' of Pa Shen, after so long, he informed me that I must take you as my wife."

            This did not impress Ranma or Ranko. 

            "What about the other one? The monkey-girl. Didn't you say I looked like that girl?" Ranko demanded, grasping at once for a way for Ranma, Fa Shen and herself to dodge this latest absurdity. 

            Herb sighed. "It is true that you do, but there was no way she could be joined to the dragon bloodline. As I have said to you before," he stressed with distaste, "the Musk do not actively seek animal brides anymore. As a physical reincarnation of Fa Shen, she qualifies as a rare exception. What you may have overlooked, is that her animal nature would be emphasized in her descendants, making her unsuited to my line, and thus useful only for starting a new monkey heritage or strengthening an existing monkey bloodline. As there was a man who desired the latter, she has already been taken as a wife"

            "Okay, fine. She's not available. That still doesn't explain why it's so important for you to marry one of us," Ranko huffed. 

            "In all honesty, I am not entirely pleased by the necessity. However, my father's will is law, and it is essential simply for that matter," Herb pronounced. "Since that is no doubt insufficient for you, I can tell you only what has been revealed to me. Even though Fa Shen did not manifest the potential of Her mother's gift, it is preserved in Her blood, as She was preserved in the Sacred Spring. If I were to wed a human cursed in Her image, Her potential would be unsullied. The children I sired would have renewed vitality, and powers that have been lost to the Royal Line, through generations of breeding with pure humans, would be restored."

            "Sheesh. You talk about her like she's some kinda goddess," Ranma complained irritably. Blinking in surprise, she suddenly realized that everyone had been speaking in Mandarin the whole time, including herself. That still caught her by surprise. Before this trip, it was usually only Ranko, and of course Fa Shen, who lapsed into Chinese. Being reminded of how much a part of her Fa Shen was, even if she was not consciously aware of it, forced her to think hard about where all of this was going. 

            Ranko chewed on her lip, her eyes lowered in contemplation. This was not a good situation. If it was that important to the Musk, there was no way the trio were going to be able to talk Herb out of it. Given her history with the Musk, the last person Fa Shen would willingly marry was a dragon prince. Ranko did not think it would help to point out that they had to unlock the instant curse very soon or Fa Shen would not be able to marry any man, but Herb would probably use that to force Fa Shen into it. If Fa Shen, or maybe Ranma or Ranko, did not agree to marry Herb, he would refuse to unlock the curse. A quick look at Ranma told her that she was thinking the same thing. Without giving it another thought, she slipped the magic compact into her palm and softly opened it, exposing the reflective glass so that only Ranma could see it. Ranma caught the motion and nodded, before fixing her gaze in the mirror. As soon as Ranma was sucked in, Ranko quickly closed the mirror and thrust it into the folds of her shadow.

            "Whaaaat!?" there was an outcry of alarm from Herb's entourage, as Ranma seemed to pour into Ranko's hand and disappear. Several armed men rushed in at the sound. 

            "What have you done?" Herb demanded. 

            "Sh- she just vanished!" cried the maroon-haired amazon. 

            Ranko tossed her head and crossed her arms. "Calm down. I just sent Ranma to talk to Fa Shen." More importantly, Ranma could warn everyone of the trouble that had come up and prepare them to come out fighting, if Ranko could not talk her way out of this mess. 

            Herb snorted. "I never took you for a sorcerer, Ranma."

            "Ranko…. Never mind. It's a long story." The remaining red-head studied the dragon prince intently. Taking a deep breath, she asked, "Are you going to let us use the Kaisuifuu?"

            "I had not known whom it was Cologne wished to set free," Herb murmured evasively, posing in regal contemplation. "Her message to me only stated that her retainer, Mousse, had switched a bottle of chisuiiton water for a bottle of Togenkyo antidote and caused an amazon girl to become locked by an instant curse. It was not wise of her to leave out the fact that the amazon girl in question is in fact Fa Shen brought back to life," Herb frowned, standing up and dismissing the guards who had entered at the outcry. "That last part is very astounding. You must tell me how it happened."

            "I'll get to it. Right now I wanna know if you're going to do what you promised, without any strings attached," Ranko also stood up, forcing herself to stand loose and casual, but entirely on guard. 

            Herb turned his back and continued speaking. "I have already discussed the situation with the Guide, so I am aware that time is limited. If Fa Shen is not unlocked soon, She will remain stuck as a man," he admitted. Turning around, he offered an unpleasant smile. "I would have to guess, from what I see, that there was another, perhaps your mother or hers, who proceeded you and I into the Nyanniichaun. Some one my father, or his, might have chosen for a bride, had he known of her existence. It cannot be a coincidence that you are a perfect match for Her in your true form."

            "Cologne said the same thing," Ranko admitted, seeing no reason to deny it. "Does that mean you'll just marry me, and let Fa Shen be stuck as a guy?" she challenged hotly. 

            "As a matter of fact, if I had a choice between one who was a woman at heart and one who was a man, I find the first far more attractive… Ranko," he smiled, hesitantly acknowledging her professed identity. "Fortunately, because She is an amazon, I have no need to withhold the use of the Kaisuifuu to secure Her promise to wed. I need but defeat Her," Herb pointed out succinctly. 

            Ranko expelled the breath she had been holding in a rush. "Damn." Defeating Herb in battle was no small feat. Their past conflict had not revealed the full extent of Herb's mastery of ki manipulation, but had caused Herb to boast that he was a master of all known forms. It was possible that Ergot's descendants had learned from the humiliations the ancient dragon prince had suffered against Fa Shen and Herb might be a match for her ingenuity. Ranko quickly searched through the list of techniques she had gained through Fa Shen's memories, and tried to imagine how they would have played out in the Battle of Mount Horaisan. If Fa Shen, or Ranko, fought Herb now, they would need to find a bigger mountain and hope there was something left of it when they were through.

            "I thought you would be relieved," Herb smirked. "If I am not forced to take you or… does the other one still go by Ranma?" he interjected curiously. Ranko nodded and he continued. "I see. I was about to say the two of you would be free to use the Nanniichaun, if I did not take one of you as a bride, but I find myself wondering if you would. Unless I am mistaken, you have taken a feminine name, Ranko," Herb imposed thoughtfully. Studying her more carefully, taking in her amazon appearance, he crossed his arms. "Ah, I see. Very clever, Cologne," he muttered to himself. Pointing a finger at Ranko he challenged, "I do not believe you are merely posing as an amazon. Elder Cologne has deemed that you are still a reincarnation of Fa Shen, even though She has been resurrected. You are not just a woman in body, but a woman in spirit as well!"

            "That is the Law," the maroon-haired amazon announced airily. 

            Ranko fumed. So much for keeping that a secret. Defiantly, she spat, "I am still getting cursed, Herb. I am as much a man as I am a woman, and…" she spluttered to a stop as she was splashed from behind by Lime. Whipping around, she confirmed that the Chisuiiton was the culprit. She had not even noticed the silent signal to the tiger-boy. For the first time the precise wording Cologne had used, when she first described its function, came back to haunt her. It used cold water to lock one's form. Not specifically the curse, but the form one held in cold water. The temperature of the water summoned the cursed form, but the power of the lock would effect her normal form, making it curse proof. Lunging forward, she cursed, "Damn you, Herb! Unlock it! Now!"

            Herb chuckled, "Now, Ranko. We both know that if you got cursed now, you could only be locked in male form. Think of it as insurance. You may have learned that Fa Shen was a ki master, and a prodigal genius at that. In a battle between us, I could not be certain of victory, so, as long as there is another I can challenge as well, who will satisfy my father's demand, I must guarantee her availability. If I claim Fa Shen as my bride, I will unlock you and allow you to reclaim what manhood you will. My challenge is to Her first. If She is willing to meet it, then She will be waiting for me by the Nyanniichaun in the morning. As there are no grounds for the Amazons to object, you may take the party that accompanied you here and go," Herb dismissed them. 

            "What about Ai Xiadou and her husband?" the amazon demanded, naming her superior, worriedly. Normally, an amazon brought her new outsider husband home with her, but the Musk often refused to play along. 

            "Kai Yaun was reckless. It is fitting for him to accompany you until an arrangement is worked out with his bride. Now be gone!" Herb commanded irritably. He really did not want Ranko to linger long enough to challenge him on the spot for the Kaisuifuu. "Lime! Mint! Take them to the Guide," he ordered his personal retainers, hoping to hurry things along. The pair acknowledged the command, Lime seizing Ranko while Mint grabbed the maroon-haired amazon, and dragged them out of the palatial tent. In short order, Ranko and the amazon war party were standing outside the Guide's hut. The two Musk boys retreated a bit, but could not quite pull themselves away from the sight of so many healthy female endowments. 

            There was a quick discussion, in which Ranko admirably convinced the war party that she was an amazon, courtesy of Fa Shen's memories. Kai Yaun and Ai Xiadou separated from the group as the young woman finally regained consciousness and went to work on the poor man. Haiu Dai, the maroon-haired second in command, asked Ranko when Cologne was supposed to arrive, prompting her to pull out the mirror and free her friends and family. The commotion, as the crowd outside the hut almost doubled in an instant, brought the stocky guide out of the hut in a hurry. While everyone was sorting themselves out, Ranko grabbed Ranma, Fa Shen and Cologne to explain what had happened during the conclusion of her audience with Prince Herb. By the end of the conversation, they were all back to speaking Japanese.  

            "I was afraid something like this might happen," Cologne sighed. 

            "If you were, why didn't you warn any of us?" Ranma demanded. Finding out that Herb had locked Ranko against getting cursed had deeply upset her, and it took both Ranko and Fa Shen to keep her from racing back to Herb's camp to take the Kaisuifuu by force. 

            "To be honest, I did not foresee things starting out this bad. I assumed, when Herb showed no interest in you the first time, that he was ignorant of who Fa Shen was, or at least how to recognize her. I should have known his father would have enlightened him," Cologne berated herself. 

            "So what do we do?" Fa Shen asked. Obviously he and Ranko both needed the cure to the Chisuiiton, but he wondered if there was some way to regain the initiative. "I mean, now that I have Ranma's skill added to my own, I'm certain I could defeat him in the marriage challenge, and Ranko's twice as powerful as I. Is there any reason not to just go along with his demands?"

            "I think the first thing to do is make it so he won't just move on to challenging Ranma," Ranko proposed, turning to look at Ranma. "I know you weren't planning on getting cursed, but if you hit the Nanniichaun now, the worst Herb can do is lock you in guy form. It might be enough to keep him from tryin' to challenge you too."

            Ranma looked down. "As long as I don't get locked before Fa Shen is cured, I suppose that's fine," she agreed, turning to look for the guide. "I just hope we can trust the guide to lead me to the right spring. Hey!" Without warning she sprinted away, shouting, "Ryouga! Mousse! Look out!"

            "What?" Ranko turned around. The two temporary girls were looking back in confusion as Ranma raced at them, oblivious to Lime and Mint approaching them with the Chisuiiton. "Oh no!" she gasped, raising her hands and focusing her chi. "Mokotakabisha!"

            The bullet of chi raced towards the Musk boys, aimed at the bucket and ladle in Lime's hands. In spite of her instant reaction, however, it was already too late. A sparkle of light reflected through the air as the ladle whipped towards Mousse and Ryouga, catching their attention in time to make them turn in that direction and receive a face full of water. The bolt of chi grazed Lime's back as the boy and his partner raced forward to glomp the pair they had just rendered permanently female. Mousse and Ryouga were too shocked to react as they were whipped around by the boys in a victory dance. 

            "The breasts are there to stay! The breasts are there to stay!" they sang joyously, as they cavorted in delight. As Ranma arrived, and Shun whipped around in shock, Ryouga and Mousse finally reacted with righteous fury, ripping open their shirts to flash the two boys, and then pounding the two of them into unconsciousness while they were distracted. Ranma grabbed the Chisuiiton and looked at her two friends in dismay.

            "Oh, Man! I'm sorry guys!" she cried. 

            The two martial artists shuddered and looked back. The only thing on their minds was, "Thank God I'm not a duck!" and "Thank God I am not a pig!" respectively. This was immediately followed by synchronized wails of, "Aaaaaah! I'm a girl!" as it sunk in that even the hope of retaining part time manhood was washed away by the impulsive action of the Musk teens. 

            "Now you know how Shun feel!" the former Shampoo grated. Looking around, he cried, "Hey! Where Akane go?" Just when Ranma shouted out the first warning, Akane and Shun had been stretching their legs and commenting on how great it was to get out of the mirror finally. Akane had taken one look at the flying water and screamed like a girl—all things considered, he did have the right—before racing directly away from Lime and Mint. 

            Raising a hand to shade her eyes, Ranko made out a trail of dust clouds settling to Earth, and turned to the Guide. "Excuse me, where does that path lead?" she prompted. 

            "Ah! That is path to too fine special hot springs retreat. Is favorite spot for tourists and recent victims of Springs of Sorrow. Your friend have very good taste!" he smiled amiably. In the distance there came the sound of a body crashing into water. "Aiyaa! Forgot to mention. Is big drop off at end of path. Main spring at bottom of cliff, so is okay!"

            "Uh, these aren't cursed hot springs, right?" Ranma gulped. 

            "No, no. Like big pool, nice and deep, no is cursed. Is perfectly safe…"

            "Shun wonder, anyone know if Hammer-girl learn how to swim yet?"

            "Akane!" Ranma and Ranko raced out of sight. 

As usually happened whenever Akane found himself in more than a furo full of water, he thrashed at the surface for a minute or so before sinking like a rock. That was just long enough to notice the soapy bubbles mixed in with the froth of her panicked splashing. It was not enough for her to recognize what that signaled, as the restored girl sank out of sight. The foam on the troubled water did make a useful target for Ranko and Ranma as they dove from the top of the cliff to rescue her. When they dragged the waterlogged Tendo back to the Guide's hut, her restoration was taken as a bad sign for Ryouga, Shun and Mousse. While there was still time for them to retrieve their original cursed forms from the fabric of the instant curses, the only way to unlock them would instantly bypass the instant curse and restore their natural human forms. It was just the way the Kaisuifuu worked, heating the water it was exposed to and granting it the ability to reverse the Chisuiiton. As they gathered for dinner, putting significant distance between themselves and the amazon war party, Fa Shen spoke up and announced that the only way for them to avoid ending up with a sex-changing curse was to take advantage of the locking to master their curses. 

            "I don't know exactly what would happen," Fa Shen warned them cautiously. "I don't think any initiate of the Shokei Fist ever had two curses on them when they attempted mastery. What I do know is that true mastery was attained when an initiate could overpower the lock and assert their normal form. That broke the trigger for the curse and made it entirely subject to his control."

            "So, I'd master the ability to change between male and female," Ryouga asked curiously. "That would be less annoying than changing with water, but I don't see how that really changes anything."

            "Well, you're forgetting that there's the other form caught in the instant curse. Even if you break the lock, the next time you are hit with water, hot or cold, you'll change into that form permanently," Fa Shen pointed out. "Your animal forms will become your base forms, and you may, or may not, be able to summon one of the human forms over it. You might all be better staying the way you are for a couple of weeks until there is no trace of the instant curse left."

            "Do you have to have a curse to be able to break the lock that way?" Ranko asked, considering her options for the future, in case Herb withheld the Kaisuifuu from her until he was married to Fa Shen. 

            "I don't think so. Maybe I should explain how you go about mastering a curse," Fa Shen offered. With everyone's encouragement, she began to spell it out for them. The key to mastering a curse was asserting one's true form, the default "mastered" form. Success in mastering a curse lay in an unhesitating acceptance of the cursed form. The trick was accomplishing that without losing one's grip on one's true form. It was the universal risk of the traditional Shokei Fist, though most students "broke in" their curses before locking them. "The idea is, the water trigger is a signal to your unconscious mind to transform, and a disciplined mind can train itself to recognize the ability to transform and learn to control it. The simplest training method is to practice trying to slow down or resist the water triggers, until you can keep from transforming in hot or cold water. The next step would be to initiate a change without using water to trigger the curse. The final test is to make yourself change when the curse is completely locked."

            "That's not very helpful. None of us ever did anything like that with our curses when they were normal," Mousse complained. 

            "I know," Fa Shen admitted, bowing to the criticism. "But, with what happened to me, I've been thinking about my training, and I remembered that there were people who had better success starting with a locked curse. They claimed that it was not necessary to build up control, since the ability is created with the curse. All you have to do is accept that you can change, and that it is perfectly natural to be in control of it."

            "Really?" Ranma piped up. That was an attitude that made a lot more sense to her. In a lot of her past training, she had been able to make incredible progress because she never doubted her ability to master a new technique, once she grasped the essence of it. Tilting her head, she wondered, "Say, Fa Shen. If you had this training, how come you never went through with mastering a curse? It would be a lot more helpful right now if you had, you know."

            "It's not like I ever expected something like this would happen, where I'd need that kind of experience," Fa Shen scowled. With a sigh, he revealed the cause of his mother's greatest disappointment in him. When Fa Shen had been an apprentice of the Shokei Fist, in preparation for mastering an alternate form, she discovered what form she was being asked to master, and refused to proceed. "There were a lot of forms I was interested in trying as an initiate, but my mother had already decided that my alternate form would be a man, because the type of animal she had been had never drowned at Jusenkyo. The only reason I was introduced to the Shokei Fist was to see if I could tap into my mother's animal heritage," she revealed. In order for Fa Shen to awaken it, she had to learn the Shokei Fist and then find that animal part of herself and manifest it by adapting the technique to summon a form she had never experienced. "I offered to take a different curse, but Mother insisted none were alien enough to prepare me for her true animal form. According to her, only masculinity was sufficiently alien, to prepare me for the next step." Now, ironically, she could complete that part of her training. 

            "Have you tried mastering this form, since you were locked?" Cologne asked, setting down her bowl and fixing the red-haired boy with a steady gaze. 

            "I have, but…" Fa Shen hesitated, then sighed. "I think there was a problem we overlooked. You warned us that night that burning off ki, or a lot of chi, would break down the part of the spirit where the instant curse is held, and the other day it occurred to me that surface ki is probably what is shed during sex to generate new life. I've tried everything I know of to override the lock and trigger of a curse, and there just does not seem to be anything there to effect."

            That caused a lot of people to drop their utensils. 

            "You mean, when Fa Shen have sex with Shampoo, he lose girl form forever?" Shun demanded, growing sickly pale. At Fa Shen's nod, the purple-haired boy cringed and bowed in misery. 

            "Oh, it's not that big a deal," Fa Shen offered a reassuring smile. "I wasn't entirely sure, and I still needed to get the lock removed to be able to reverse the effect with Instant Nyanniichaun. I'm pretty sure that will put me back to normal." 

            "But, wouldn't that mean…?" Ranko trailed off, gesturing roughly at Shun and Mousse. "Well, you know. They ARE married. Doesn't that mean they've already lost their original curses?"

            Mousse blushed and shook her head, "No. Ah… That's not a danger. Shun and I, er… we're not really that comfortable with these bodies yet."

            "Not for lack of trying," Shun blazed in furious embarrassment. It was a knee jerk reaction to Mousse's admission, attempting to make sure that everyone understood that the former amazon was in no way intimidated by his masculinity. "We taking own sweet time to get to know one and other better," he added at once, to cover the remark. "Marriage happen so fast, and maybe not last too long, so is best just be like good good friends and so no one get hurt."

            "Well, Akane went back to normal okay," Ranma pointed out. "I guess that means she and Ryouga didn't do anything they'd regret." Those two glanced up at Ranma, realizing finally that, even if Ranma suspected the worst, she had long since forgiven them—to be able to remark upon it so casually. "I guess that means ol' P-Chan is still safe, huh, Pork Butt?"

            "Hey! Who are you callin'…!?" Ryouga responded automatically. 

            "Ranma! Stop picking on P-Chan!" Akane growled playfully, cutting in on Ryouga's retort. Ryouga and Ranma turned to stare at Akane. Ranko looked over thoughtfully. Akane offered her "cute" grin and shrugged. "What? So I miss my pet pig. At least I still have my friend," she reached out and patted Ryouga-chan on the head. 

            "Y-you forgive me?" Ryouga asked, wide eyed. 

            Akane sighed and looked at her seriously, "I think I've figured out that you have a hard time saying no to some things, even if you know they're not exactly the right thing to do. I might wish I hadn't told you all the things I did, but it's probably better in the end that they got said. You've made me realize that I do need to talk to people about things, and not be afraid they'll hate me for saying what I think. Can you forgive me?"

            "Aww, come on, Akane. You didn't do anything bad to me," Ryouga waved her off. Looking a bit more serious, she added, "You scared me half to death, but you didn't really hurt me. That's probably a good thing, since I don't think I would have stopped you if you tried."

            After a moment of silence, Fa Shen returned to the subject, "In any case, for those of you who would want to try and master your curses while they are locked, the best advice I was given was to meditate and envision yourself changing back into your normal forms. Since you've had curses for a while, you could focus on remembering all the times you changed back. The important thing is to not fight against the form you are in. If you are in conflict, you won't be able to achieve a state of peace." 

            Ryouga studied Fa Shen thoughtfully. She already knew her pig form was lost to her, but the idea of mastering the girl curse that replaced it was still tempting. On the off chance she did master it, there was no difficulty saying it just took too long or that fits of depression were responsible for burning off too much ki to generate heavy ki, to explain why she was stuck with her altered curse. Certainly, she would never have to be a girl except when she wanted to be. Looking at Mousse and Shampoo, she wondered if they would bother with mastering the new forms they possessed, and risk having their original cursed forms return when the lock was broken. Shrugging, she let it go and finished her meal. Ranma, Ranko and Akane had mentioned that there was a cool stream by the hot springs, and Ryouga itched to take a bath as soon as dinner was over. 

            When everyone was done eating, Ryouga was not the only weary traveler to grab a towel and bath kit and head for the hot springs. Not precisely everyone followed. Reinforcements from the amazon village had shown up during the meal, redirected to the springs by the Musk, only to be sent home by Cologne, with the original war party. But the rest of Nerima veterans, except for Ranma, seemed headed in that direction. Ranma had decided to enlist the Guide's help preparing a cask of Nanniichaun to take back home for her father. At the same time, she could take a dip to protect herself from the threat of being locked as a girl and regain her part-time manhood. Out of curiosity, Ranko hesitated, putting off her bath to follow Ranma and the Guide and find out the location of the Nanniichaun. Nodoka, Cologne, Akane, Ukyo, Ryouga, Mousse, Shun and Fa Shen all gathered along the stream and shed their clothing. Making use of conveniently placed boulders to shield the three groups they formed, so that the female boys and the male girls were all isolated from the uncursed women, as well as each other. Thus, Ryouga only witnessed what happened to Mousse, after she scrubbed herself down and rinsed the soap away. To Ryouga's complete shock, Mousse turned into a very confused duck. 

            As the duck turned to stare at her, Ryouga scrubbed herself down again and rinsed one more time, but did not change. From a little ways down stream, there was a sudden scream of terror, and Fa Shen came racing around the boulder between the cursed boys' and cursed girls' bathing areas. "C-c-c…. CAAAAT!" he howled, unable to believe this phobia had infected him. 

            With wide eyes, Ryouga got up to investigate, finding Shampoo-neko sitting on a rock looking scared and ridiculous with her fur plastered to her body. "I don't get it," Ryouga whimpered. She picked up the cat and brought her back to where Mousse was quaking in misery. "You were both locked with the chisuiiton water. Why would you change back like this?" the lost girl complained, feeling very lost indeed. Focusing on Shampoo, she asked, "If you turn back into a girl, will Cologne have you executed?" The cat nodded and mewed piteously. Ryouga sighed. "I could use some water proof soap I suppose. I don't have anything else to keep you from turning into a girl," Ryouga informed her, picking up the bundle next to her bathing kit and unwrapping it to reveal the extra bar of water proof soap. When the cat nodded, Ryouga sighed and went to work lathering her fur, shaking her head in dismay. After rinsing her off, Ryouga picked up all the discarded clothing and let the two animals lead her back to the hot springs. The duck landed in the water and promptly turned into a dejected, male Mousse. Shampoo settled on the edge of the pool and stared at her former wife with obvious feline sadness. Ryouga took a deep breath and settled into the hot water, not surprised to turn back into a man, but no less confused.

            Mousse looked up and squinted. Pulling a pair of thick glasses out of nowhere, he glared at Ryouga, "You didn't turn into a pig. The soap lock broke down, like mine and Shampoo's, but you were still a girl."

            "Don't ask me. I don't understand why the Chisuiiton didn't work," Ryouga shrugged. Remembering the excuse he had planned to make, he added, "I guess I used too much chi or something…" 

            "What on Earth is the matter with Fa Shen?" Cologne's voice intruded, as the uncursed women made their way over to the hot springs. "Hold on a moment," her voice came again as she excused herself form the other women and approached the occupied spring. Nodoka, Akane and Ukyo paused, seeing the boys in the spring, and moved off to find one with a bit of privacy. Cologne, almost hidden under a thick towel, marched shamelessly toward the boys. "Ryouga! Mousse! You've turned back into men! And… Sh… Shampoo's cat is here," she made a quick mental adjustment to redefine her condemned great-granddaughter's status in a fashion that would not call for fatal actions. 

            "Elder Cologne," Mousse nodded in greeting, sinking a little lower in the onsen. "It seems that the Chisuiiton is repelled by water proof soap."

            Cologne considered that. "Perhaps so. I would imagine, then, that the magic is too similar, and thus mutually intolerant. If that is the case, it was barely so. I am sorry Mousse; it looks as though you are no longer married. As your former husband, Shun, and my great-granddaughter are no longer among us, I would consider it a great favor if you would look after their cat until something can be done to redeem Shampoo, so that she can return to us," the woman requested, suddenly looking as old as she was. 

            Mousse blinked, and then carefully approached the cat, spilling a handful of hot water over her to demonstrate that what Cologne feared was not liable to happen. With a sigh of relief, Cologne settled on a submerged rock to soak in the hot water. A short time later, Ranko approached, leading a naked Fa Shen—covered about the waist with a borrowed towel—and his twin, Ranma. Newly cursed, Ranma was also a red-haired version of his old self. They took one look at the cat sitting by Mouse and Ryouga's onsen and retreated to find a different pool where they could warm themselves after bathing. 

            "Well, it looks like Ranma did it," Mousse muttered.

            "I'll be right back," Ryouga announced, excusing himself and rising from the water. He wrapped a towel around himself and leapt to the top of a boulder to see if he could get a fix on the trio. Finding them on the path down to the stream, and in plain sight from his vantage, he jumped down to join them. At their stares, he confirmed what Fa Shen had already revealed, but with a handful of cold water, demonstrated what had gone differently for him, or rather her.

            "You were right, Ranko," she admitted ruefully. "I guess I must have burned too much chi or something. But, I should tell you something. I'm not sure how it happened, but I got stuck like this that first night. I don't remember giving off a lot of chi, and I definitely did not have sex, but when I went up to wash all that oil off of me, I discovered that I no longer had my pig form."

            Ranko stared at her for a moment then gasped. "Hot water! Oh, Ryouga! It's my fault! I made you use hot water to help thin the oil, and… the oil! I bet that's what broke the lock! I mean, over time your skin gets oily…"

            "…and soap binds oil to water," Ryouga added in realization. She could remember how the water that turned her into a girl had a soapy residue that clung to her skin. The improved Instant Nyanniichaun formula had probably just included finely powdered water proof soap in the mixture. "But, what's that about hot water?"

            "Cologne said… oh, you weren't there. She told us that if you changed back with hot water, you'd lose your original cursed form! I forget to warn you when I got there. I'm sorry, Ryouga!" Ranko begged for forgiveness. 

            "It's alright, Ranko. Like I said, at least I'm still human. Mousse just turned back into a duck and Shampoo is stuck as a cat now. I had to use my water proof soap on her," she explained, remembering she had been informed the next morning. Of course, that had already been too late. 

            "Well, at least it's just that. I guess if they went a few more days without a bath or anything, they might have gotten mutated," Ranma sighed. He completed bathing and rinsed off, followed shortly by Fa Shen and Ranko. The four present did not even notice they were mixed company, with two girls and two boys. They had all become somewhat inured to gender differences. When they led Ryouga to the onsen they had chosen, and climbed in, Ranma and Ryouga's transformations only raised a few eyebrows and a somewhat dejected comment from Ranko. 

            "Well, you two are a perfect match now. One turns into a boy when the other turns into a girl." It just did not seem fair. Ranko just hoped that this did not tempt Ranma to reconsider giving up Ryouga. If it had not been for Herb, it would have been Ranko that was a perfect match for the lost boy-girl. She sighed as she noticed that her comment had made both of them uncomfortable, causing them to edge apart slowly, almost casually. Returning to the news that the soap had provided a little protection from the Chisuiiton, she smiled and placed a soothing hand on Ryouga's shoulder, "Well, it looks like the soap lasted just long enough, Ryouga. At least you're not stuck as a girl."


	45. In Hot Water Again

Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections

A. V. Morgan

Part Forty-Five: In Hot Water Again

In spite of the comfort and relaxation offered by the hot springs near Jusenkyo, a great tension and uneasiness hung over the heads over the travelers from Nerima. Full dark had set in while they were bathing, prompting them to set up camp near the hot springs and huddle around a fire wrapped in blankets. They were all grateful to put a little distance between themselves, the Musk encampment and the cursed springs. Once morning came, it would be impossible to avoid either. Ranko was still shocked by Herb's actions at their meeting, having confirmed that the Chisuiiton had made her curse proof when she joined Ranma in jumping into the Nanniichuan before their baths. In spite of her bitter regret at losing the chance to reclaim part-time manhood, she had taken the Chisuiiton that Ranma had liberated from Lime and Mint, and splashed her mother, Akane, Ukyo and Cologne to grant them equal protection from the springs of sorrow. Of the four, she had been most concerned about Ukyo making good on her threat to acquire a Nanniichuan curse. That precaution was the only thing sparing her the need to watch Ukyo like a hawk. Which was good, since Ukyo had been so upset she had stormed off and could only be tracked by the sounds of violence erupting from the surrounding forest. 

            "I think she'll forgive you, once she's had a chance to come to her senses," Cologne soothed, unable to resist a sympathetic smile as Ranko cringed at the sound of wood and stone breaking to the accompaniment of curses. It seemed obvious from the chef's outburst that she had been  intent on getting herself cursed. Which only added to Ranko's gloom. 

            That was nothing that a little anger could not save her from. "I told her to experiment with Instant Nanniichuan first! I can't believe she was really plannin' on jumpin' in! I am definitely not telling her about the other cask of Nanniichuan now!" she growled. As much as she hated the idea of Ukyo getting cursed for her, the chef had made her point about what her options were if she did not marry Ranma. While Ranma was getting water for their father, Ranko filled a cask that could be given to Ukyo under special circumstances. It still pained Ranko that Ryouga had told her it was too late for him to love her. It had forced her to reconsider Ucchan's dilemma, and the possibility that marrying Ranko might be the only solution to her problems. That, and a male Ucchan might be enough to tempt Ranko's heart to love her best friend back. 

            "If you told her, maybe she would calm down," Ranma retorted. 

            "Yeah, but I don't want her to get the idea that I WANT her to be a man," Ranko sighed, turning to look at the reclining boy. 

            "But you do, don't you?"

            "Well, you can't marry Akane AND Ukyo, and Mom won't let me marry a girl unless I am a guy. I'm just glad Mom's givin' us a choice about this," Ranko said under her breath. These contingency plans had been discussed during rest periods over the past couple of days, along with another matter that had to be brought up. Clearing her throat, she turned back to Cologne. "Right now, I'm more concerned about Shampoo. We just can't leave her like that!" she exclaimed with a shudder. 

            "I've already told you I have no problem if Shun decides to come back," Cologne replied edgily, shying away from Ranko's demand that she recognize her great-granddaughter in her present circumstances. Ranko rolled her eyes.

            "Great, but that doesn't change the fact that right now we have that- that- that c-c-c-ca-cat followin' us around!" she stammered nervously, resisting the urge to try and spot the threat in the darkness. "Besides, if 'Shun' comes back, then I just have one more guy runnin' around tryin' to beat me up and force me to marry him! An' since you won't let Mousse go back to bein' a girl, he's talkin' about that joint marriage thing with Shampoo and maybe double-teaming me!"

            "Yes, well, no one said being an amazon would be easy, Ranko."

            "Oh, come on! Easy was never an option! This is just insane!" she shrilled, looking to her siblings for support. 

            "She has a point," Ranma argued, sitting up and putting on a serious face. "We've already talked about this, and it's not that hard to say that Shampoo was just trying to help us with healing Ranko. She'd still be helpless if Fa Shen wasn't turned into a guy, and if anyone asks we could just say Fa Shen was acting like me and that's why Shampoo locked her as a man. It was an accident anyway." 

            "It does not change her intentions, children. The crime she committed was against the tribe, not just Fa Shen and Ranko. Turning an amazon woman into a man is unforgivable!" Cologne stressed in exasperation. 

            "Even if she was a man before? Even if Shampoo only meant it to be temporary?" Ranko challenged. Crossing her arms and looking slightly away, she revealed, "It's not like her actual plan would have worked. Fa Shen tried to sleep with me earlier, after she got drugged, and I just didn't have the ki for any kind of sexual stuff, not even when the drugs got passed into me!" 

            "And what makes you think we'd have let you kill Shampoo anyway?" Ranma threw in with a dangerous look. "It's one thing to tell us that we're all amazons because of your weird laws, but if the only thing those laws are good for is getting' people killed there ain't no way we're going to stand for it. Killing people is not the way to solve problems! A true martial artist is sworn to protect and help people. Sometimes that means you have to fight someone who wants to kill you, but you still have a duty to help them find a different solution. You kill only as a last resort, when it's the only way to save those you are sworn to protect. If that's the first thing you jump to, you never have a chance to make your enemies into friends or allies." 

            "That may be true, Ranma, but we are not a tribe of martial artists. We are a tribe of warriors. Even today we have too many enemies who would be happy to see us all dead."

            "Yeah, but how many of them did you create with your own laws?" 

            "As I told you, things are not that simple. It is always unfortunate when young people like yourself come afoul of certain laws, but your problems with Shampoo are nothing compared to the trials we have faced in the past hundred years. We have an old way of life, and it has been tested and perfected to guarantee harmony with the outside world. But the outside world has gone insane. No one with any business crossing our path would be unaware of our ways, and so long as they respect us as a people they can avoid coming into conflict with us. When a great, faceless army rolls over the horizon, intent on crushing everything under its fist, not only is there ignorance and lack of respect for us as a people, there isn't even any interest in finding out. We are all just cattle to be penned or slaughtered," Cologne lectured with unusual vehemence. 

            In a small voice, Ranko asked, "What does that have to do with killing Shampoo? I'd think, if you are that afraid of the outside world, you'd do everything you could to protect the people you have. You're already out numbered a million to one, or worse."

            Cologne sighed, "The problem with preserving a way of life is that with each new generation there is a chance of a people crumbling from within. For every outsider that comes into the tribe, our children are exposed to the dangerous influence of ideas they bring with them. If they are allowed to reject or ignore the old laws, we would quickly cease to be amazons and become easy prey for the next tyrant who came along."

            "Then you really don't understand anything," Ranma accused sadly. "I may not know much, but I know the Art, and it is a model for life. To survive, you have to change and adapt, you have to take new ideas and test them, make them part of your arsenal. If you don't, you stagnate, and eventually someone comes along who beats you, not because they're better, but because you just don't understand how they fight."

            Cologne blinked and took a good look at Ranma, Ranko and Fa Shen. With a bit of chagrin, she admitted, "I have to agree with that wisdom. I myself have taught scores of warriors the same. But you have to understand, newer is not necessarily better. The most powerful techniques you three possess are ancient. They have been tested by time, and should not be thrown aside just because they seem old fashioned. I can see you three bringing any number of new ideas to the tribe and making it stronger, but nothing you could bring can change the fact that turning women into men deeply injures them and the tribe."

            "Hey, you don't have to tell us that changing sex doesn't mess up us and the people around us," Ranko leaned back, waving her hands to protest the idea. "We're just sayin' that turning Shampoo into a man or killing her for playin' with that kind of fire doesn't fix anything. Sure, it'll make the next person think twice about pullin' that kinda stunt, but you end up hurting and losing one of your best warriors. Isn't that kinda stupid?"

            "By your own rules, you should be totally against 'Shun' coming back, and if you don't forgive Shampoo, all that leaves is forcing her to stay a c-cat," Ranma threw in, picking up the thread of Ranko's argument. Before anything more could be said, Ryouga shuffled up nervously and bent close to speak into Ranma's ear. The lost boy needed to make a call of nature, and wanted Ranma to come along and make sure he could get back to camp. Ranma stood and excused himself, "I've gotta take Ryouga for a walk. I'll be back in a little bit."

            Cologne took the opportunity to consider what the three teens had been demanding, hoping for her own sake they had managed to provide a convincing argument to do what she had wanted to do from the beginning. Seeing that the matriarch was thinking the matter over, Ranko let go of it for the moment and let her mind drift to the two boys who had wandered into the woods. She had a terrible suspicion, knowing that Ryouga was capable of tempting Ranma to go back to him. Ranma had confided his willingness to give up Ryouga to remain a man, but Ryouga's altered curse had made things different. Their curses complemented each other, and even Nodoka might make an exception because of it. Which meant Ranko would have to choose between Akane and Ukyo, because of the debts of honor that needed to be paid. Getting to her feet, and telling herself she was not just going to spy on Ranma and Ryouga, she set out in search of Ukyo, who had stopped venting her anger in the woods. 

            It was not hard to find her, in spite of the dark and silence. All Ranko had to do was follow the trail of destruction. When she found Ukyo, she was sitting in the middle of a clearing she had created, caught in a pool of moonlight. She looked beautiful, with her hair blowing gently away from a face that was calm after the storm. Her eyes were closed, as she took deep calming breaths, and faint trails of moisture glittered on her cheeks. Ranko was tempted to turn back and not disturb her, but her foot fell on a hidden branch and announced her presence with a snap. Ukyo's eyes snapped open, and anger returned to her features like an old friend.

            "Go away! I don't want to talk to you!" she shouted. 

            Ranko cringed, but advanced, reaching into her shirt. Pulling out a handful of Instant Nanniichuan packets and dropping them in Ukyo's lap, Ranko replied, "I won't bug you. I just wanted to give you these."

            Ukyo stared at her, and picked up the packets. "Why?"

            Ranko shrugged, turning away, "Ranma didn't need them anymore."

            "But, why give them to me? What good does that do, Ranko?"

            "They'll still work over the lock," Ranko explained, turning back around and adding, earnestly, "I meant it when I said you needed to experiment first, Ukyo. And, I'm sorry about interfering, but I didn't just make you curse proof to keep you from getting a guy curse. There are a lot of other springs here, and I wouldn't want you falling in any of them by accident."

            "I suppose that's sort of thoughtful, but you might as well take these back," she held out the packets, looking sad. "Now that I can't get cursed, there's no point in experimenting."

            Ranko made no move to take them. With a deep sigh, she shook her head. "No. Mom asked me and Ranma to think about marrying you. It's a matter of honor. I'll be honest, I'd probably marry Ryouga if he wanted me, but I'm not sure he does. He said it's too late. He probably can't let go of Ranma. I don't know if Ranma is going to pick him, but if he does then I have to decide between you and Akane. Somehow, I have to get out of marrying anyone else, but if I can, and you still want me, you'll have to be able to be a guy. I'll make sure you get to use the Kaisuifuu after this mess with Herb is sorted out."

            Ukyo considered this promise. Biting her lip, she dared to ask, "Do you love me, Ranko? Do you think you can love me? Or, is it just to satisfy honor?"

            "No. I don't, but I think I can," the red-head admitted shyly. "If I didn't I would not tell you any of this. I can't promise I'll end up with you, Ucchan. I'd prefer it if you didn't get cursed until we know it can happen. Doing it won't make me any more likely to chose you, because I don't really have a choice right now. This amazon thing sort of screws everything up. If you don't want to hang around waiting for me to solve this mess, I won't blame you. It's not like marrying me really fixes anything for you."

            "It doesn't matter. At least I'll be with the person I love," Ukyo stood up and approached Ranko, reaching out a tentative hand. Ranko flinched away before Ukyo could brush her cheek. 

            "Please don't," she looked down. Taking a ragged breath, she tried to explain her turmoil. "I can't do this now. I need time to get over Ryouga before I can love you the way you want, Ukyo. I can't just use you to get away from him. Please don't make this any harder. If you push me, it'll never happen."

            Ukyo felt her insides twist. She wanted to find the lost boy and strangle him. After the scene that first day in the mirror, Ukyo and Akane had grown very close worrying over the threat Ryouga was to their loves for Ranko and Ranma. It still surprised Ukyo that Akane had gravitated toward Ranma, but Akane had confessed that, even as a boy, he had been drawn to Ranma, to the inner man. Ranko had become her best friend, one of the people she loved more than life itself, but there was no real romantic interest. Akane could not picture Ranko as the father of her children, and certainly could not picture herself—himself, at the time—as the father of Ranko's. For Ukyo, the lines of gender had blurred too much to cause the same difficulty. It was too easy to see the advantages of sharing the child bearing and rearing duties with Ranko, tasting the best of both worlds. But these optimistic fantasies turned to ash as she realized that Ranko's heart had to be shattered before she could hope to claim it, and Ukyo would have to wait until she picked up the pieces before she could try. Both girls were going through the same thing, but for one to win, the other had to lose. "It's not fair!"

            "What else is new?" Ranko muttered, hugging herself and moving away. The sad truth was, she finally understood Ukyo, and part of her resented the thought of sacrificing her own hopes and dreams to grant her friend's. She was not in a hurry to fall in love with Ukyo, and it made her hate herself for prolonging the other girl's agony. Especially when the okonomiyaki chef would ultimately have to make a greater sacrifice, in Ranko's mind, if it came to marriage. "Promise you won't get cursed until it's absolutely necessary," she begged. 

            Ukyo studied the pain on Ranko's face and finally bowed. "I promise."

            Ranko nodded. "Good." She watched Ukyo put the packets away and said nothing when the chef approached, suggesting they return to camp and get some sleep. In silence, they started walking back through the woods. 

            As they were passing the stream, looking for the stepping stones that would let them cross over without getting wet, they noticed voices coming from around a large boulder. There was no mistaking who it was, or that Ryouga had reverted to girl form. After a moment, it was also clear what Ryouga was up to, as she hesitantly pointed out to Ranma that she sort of owed him for what happened when the boy woke up as a girl. Biting her lip, Ranko edged forward, to see what they were doing. Creeping over the top of the boulder, she saw the pair standing close together, with their arms around each other. As she watched, Ryouga tightened her arms around Ranma's neck, pulling his mouth towards hers. Ranko stared, unbelieving, until Ranma began to respond to the kiss, moaning in pleasure and returning it with interest. Unable to watch any more, she leapt from the top of the boulder to the other side of the stream, sprinting silently away towards camp. Wondering what the other girl had seen, to react like that, Ukyo edged forward to peer at the couple. 

            Ukyo's eye twitched as the desire to throttle Ryouga returned with renewed force. In spite of herself, she took this insult to Ranko personally. As much as she hated the idea of losing Ranko to the lost one, it bothered her more that Ryouga was causing her beloved so much pain. She was about to jump in and brain the jerk, when Ranma stiffened and shoved Ryouga back. 

            "Dammit, Ryouga!" he growled in frustration. "You're not listening to me. I don't want you to be a girl for me! I can't ask you to do something I can't. I appreciate you wantin' to pay me back for what happened, but I can't just have sex with you and walk away. For one thing, Ranko would kill me!"

            "She doesn't have to know," Ryouga protested, reaching out to him again. "I mean, it's not like she even wants me, Ranma. Don't turn me away too! Not now! Not, like this!" she gestured to her body, letting all her frustration show. 

            "You don't understand, Ryouga. I can't keep secrets from her. It's not because I'd tell her," he cut off the expected protest. "There is nothing I can do to keep her from finding out! We're all linked to each other. And who said she didn't want you, you idiot! I don't know how it happened, but… She loves you. She somehow pulled the copy Ranko out of me, and left me just the memories. I love you too, but, not like she does."

            "Then why did she run away from me!? Why does she always avoid me!?" The past few days had been sheer torture, and only the confusion and unexpected intensity of the pain had kept her from sinking into a killing depression over it.

            "I don't know, Man. She said you rejected her. That's what I was trying to say earlier, before you started tryin' to seduce me. She tried to tell you how she felt, and you told her it was too late! What kinda moron are you!?" Ranma accused, throwing in the insult without even thinking. 

            "I didn't tell her that! When she told me she was MY Ranko, I decided to tell her about what happened to my curse! She was trying to keep me from messin' it up with my depression, but it was already to late! It was already altered the night before, but she wouldn't listen to me. She just jumped up and refused to talk to me anymore. Today, in the onsen, was the first time she's said anything directly to me!" Ryouga protested, pulling at her hair. 

            "Huh?" Ranma gaped. 

            In the shadows, Ukyo mimicked him. In haste she lunged forward and announced, "Hey! If that's true, you better go get Ranko! She just saw the two of you makin' out!" Ukyo felt like an idiot at once, letting her rival, Ryouga, know she had just guaranteed Ranko would never trust her again. Kicking herself, she grabbed Ranma and hauled him off, "Come on, Ran-chan. We have to tell her before she does something stupid!"

            Ryouga had frozen in place at Ukyo's words. Ranma had already blown her away by insisting that Ranko loved her and thought Ryouga did not love her back, presumably because of her experiences with Ranma. The horror of realizing that Ranko probably hated her now swept away all the confusion and anger, letting the depression that had been bottled up since the start of the journey rise up and consume her fear. A massive pillar of heavy chi spilled out of her, climbing high into the sky, until every erg of pathos was balled up in the heavens, waiting to crash down to Earth in a perfect shishihokodan. What she could not know, as she was emptied of all emotion, was that the curse she thought she had escaped had sloughed off during the incubation of this trademark chi attack. Triggered by the release of Ryouga's depression, the ghost of the reactivated curse was hurtling downward, seeking a subject to transform. 

            Defenseless, in the wake of her special attack, there was nothing Ryouga could do to keep the awesome power of her own shishihokodan from branding her soul with the Heitonniichuan curse. Not that she understood this, as far as she was concerned, the world exploded around her and then suddenly grew to huge and eerily familiar proportions. Leaping out of the crater that now straddled the stream, to avoid drowning in the large pool that was forming, she voiced her terror at her transformation in the only way she could.

            "Bweeeeee!"

Akane stumbled through the early morning mist, roused from slumber by the return of three desperate and tired searchers. Anyone within a mile of Jusenkyo would have seen the release of Ryouga's desperation the night before, and Akane had been among the first to reach the site of the detonation, where Ranma, Ranko and Ukyo were desperately searching for some sign of Ryouga. When all that could be found were Ryouga's clothes, the entire party was mystified. With everyone convinced that the pig curse had been lost, the only explanation anyone could come up with for Ryouga's strange disappearance was the horrible thought that she had been vaporized somehow by her own special attack. Ranma dismissed the idea at once, pointing out that the clothes she had been wearing were so loose on Ryouga's girl form, the impact of the heavy ki might have stripped them down around her slender body. Ranma, Ranko and Ukyo followed suit, when he began scouring the area, convinced that she would turn up, lost and naked, trying to find her way back to camp. 

            Akane had become too worried when they returned, after searching all night, without finding Ryouga. Combined with her anxiety over the meeting with Herb, later in the morning, she had grabbed a couple of kettles and wandered toward the stream to collect water to make breakfast. Pushing through the haze, she thought about what had happened between herself and Ryouga, and surprised herself to discover that, somewhere in her heart, she was actually grieving over the loss of P-Chan. Seeing the change in Ryouga's curse had forced her to realize that she would never see the cute little piglet she had grown so fond of, before Nodoka confronted her with the lie. Remembering that discovery was enough to summon a spike of pain, but in the days following she had taken another look at Ryouga and found enough forgiveness and understanding to lay it to rest. A little smile touched her lips as she found herself able to think back upon the piglet's bizarre knack for showing up unexpectedly in the strangest places, with humor. If Ryouga still had that curse, she figured, then P-Chan was due to appear at any moment now.

            No sooner than she thought it, she rounded a boulder and almost tripped over a little black piglet wearing a yellow and black bandanna around it's neck. Stumbling and gasping in shock, she blinked and rubbed at her eyes. The pig looked up at her in mortification. "P-Chan!?" Akane cried out, dropping the kettles, she snatched the piglet off the ground and held him up at eye level. Focusing in a little, as she glimpsed the pig's exposed underside, Akane changed that to "she" as the creature was obviously female. "Oh. Silly me. You're a girl pig. I guess Ryouga was planning to make up for being P-Chan by giving me you," Akane theorized, recovering her smile. The pig stared at her in disbelief and sighed. A thoughtful look crossed her face. "Then again, this is Jusenkyo. Maybe I better make sure you're not a person or something, hey?" The pig nodded enthusiastically. After a quick detour by the hot springs, Akane found her hand on top of Ryouga's head as the boy blushed in relief.

            "Thanks, Akane! I've been trying to find the hot springs all night!"

            "Wh- why did you turn into a pig again?" Akane demanded. 

            "I don't know," he sighed, climbing out of the spring, carefully shielding his privates as a surge of renewed depression welled up inside him. "It makes no sense! I fired off all that depression and suddenly… ernk urnk bweee!" the boy's explanation devolved into grunts and whines as his depression peaked and he turned back into a pig. Once again, the transformation left Ryouga too shocked and horrified for any other reaction. 

            "What the…!" Akane recoiled. Picking up the pig again she noticed an obvious difference, "Now you're a boy pig. Oh, Ryouga! Your curse really did get screwed up!" Gesturing for him to stay where he was, she raced to retrieve the kettles, filling them with cold water from the stream before returning. It was just a suspicion, but sure enough, cold water brought back Ryouga's girl form. "I don't get it. Hot water turns you into a boy, cold water turns you into a girl… but what keeps turning you into a pig?" she challenged the lost girl.

            "Oh, Akane! What's wrong with me!?" Ryouga cried, fear and confusion leading rapidly back to horror and depression. "I can't think of anything more depressing than spontaneously turning into a pig! This is worse than Ranko catching me kissing Ranma!" she cried. This time, as the heavy chi began to gather, Akane sensed the energy spilling back into Ryouga and triggering the change. 

            "Ryouga!" she shouted, spilling more cold water on the pig. "It's your chi! When you get depressed all that heavy chi is powering the transformation!" she declared, as Ryouga shivered and stared back in disbelief. In shock, she looked down at herself, watching as more heavy ki gushed out and soaked back into her body. The true horror of this self sustaining curse washed through her with the tingle of transformation. Akane was ready with more cold water, grabbing the girl by the shoulders and shaking her hard. "Snap out of it, Ryouga! You're doing it to yourself! Stop getting depressed!"

            "I can't help it!" she shouted in angry terror. Fortunately, the terror was overwhelming her depression. With her moody disposition, she was doomed. "Ohgod! This can't be happening!"

            "Ryouga, look at me! Calm down. Don't think about it. Just breathe."

            "What am I going to do?"

            "We'll figure something out. Just… what happens after you change? Are you still depressed?"

            "What?" Ryouga looked surprised. "No. No, I'm just shocked. It's like changing snaps me out of it, but it's already too late."

            Akane sighed. "That's good. The change eats up the depression. If you didn't get depressed as fast as you change back, you'd be alright," she guessed. All that conditioning to summon the shishihokodan at will was working against Ryouga. Watching as Ryouga's face fell again, she lashed out with an open palm. "Stop it!"

            Ryouga held her cheek where Akane slapped it. "What did you do that for?" she cringed. 

            "You keep doing it!" Akane flared. Jumping up, she grabbed Ryouga by the arm and marched her back to camp, ordering her to put on some clothes while she called Cologne over to ask if there was a pressure point that would keep Ryouga from getting depressed. The commotion drew the attention of everyone else, causing them to hear Akane's recapitulation and Cologne's assessment of the situation. Fortunately, the same point that helped to calm Tofu the night Fa Shen possessed Ranko worked on Ryouga.

            "This is a very interesting problem," Cologne pronounced, after explaining the location and pressure needed to stimulate the "Clear Head" pressure point so that others could pull Ryouga back from the brink of despair. She completed the quick lecture with a warning. "That point loses its effectiveness if it is over stimulated. I warned you that the shishihokodan was a dangerous technique, Ryouga."

            "Yeah, but you didn't say anything about it turning me into a pig!"

            "True, but I never considered what would happen if a curse was shed into someone's chi. I suspect that anyone who had been hit by that burst you let off last night would have ended up with the same problem," Cologne admitted pensively, sucking on her pipe and considering the ramifications of such an idea. Blowing out a puff of smoke, she concluded, "Well, it seems to be a legacy of your old curse. It's as controllable as your emotions, and it does not interfere with your girl curse, or the trigger to restore your male form. Why don't you go get some sleep, and I'll take another look at you after we're done dealing with Prince Herb." Not meaning to be dismissive, Cologne shoved the lost boy's problems onto a back burner. Ryouga had already caused enough distraction, and neither Ranma or Ranko were looking entirely fit for the ordeal ahead. It would hardly be the first time they faced a battle with no sleep the night before, but it was not encouraging to watch them gnawing on pillows and asking Akane what she had intended to fix for breakfast. 

            Fortunately, the trio departed with Cologne and Mousse for the Nyanniichuan before Akane realized they had thought they were eating her cooking, and not encouraging her to prepare a meal. As she settled before the cook-fire with a disturbing assortment of ingredients, everyone remaining in camp suddenly announced a desire to follow and watch Fa Shen's restoration and inevitable battle with Herb. Akane promised to have something extra special ready for them all when they returned. 

Ranko trudged behind Ranma and Fa Shen, conscious of what lay ahead but unable to focus on it. The events of the previous evening had conspired to distract her completely. Her mind kept flashing back to when Ranma and Ukyo caught up to her. They barely had time to get her attention when Ryouga blew up behind them. It was not until they were searching for the missing martial artist that Ranko had been informed of the misunderstanding that had been cleared up with Ryouga. The whole time she thought he had rejected her, he had actually been trying to confide what happened to his curse. It was because she had avoided him that Ryouga tried to offer his girl half to Ranma, hoping, because of the change, he would not reject her too. Ranko had been frantic to find Ryouga and verify all this for herself, but as the sun came up she was forced to turn her mind back to the ordeal with Herb. The fact that he wanted to meet at Fa Shen's grave did not bode well for the morning. No doubt part of the reasoning for unlocking Fa Shen in the midst of the springs was to prevent a free-for-all battle for the Kaisuifuu, and deny safe access to water if they managed to capture it. Since Herb could fly, he had a natural advantage in a place like Jusenkyo. Of course, Ranko now knew that Fa Shen had that much control of his ki as well. If he had the raw power Herb had, he too could flit around in the air and never need to touch down. 

            Fa Shen was used to being overpowered by dragon princes, and trusted his skill and ingenuity to see him through. Ranko was much closer to Herb in power level, but even she would need the power of their united triumvirate to overwhelm the dragon prince. In the battle they anticipated, the contest would be decided by skill in aerial combat, since even Herb would not risk collateral damage to the cursed springs. Who knew what the consequences of that would be? They had already taken Herb's best weapon, the Chisuiiton, out of play. Mousse had it concealed in his robes, no doubt along with Shampoo, now that it was apparent that Fa Shen might be able to tap into the Neko-ken. 

            Fa Shen's first objective was to distract Herb so the others could seize the Kaisuifuu and unlock Ranko. Once she was free of the Chisuiiton, she could race over to the Nanniichuan and get cursed, ensuring that Herb would not try locking her again. It was simple insurance, since just taking the Chisuiiton away from Herb did not mean he did not have any of the enchanted water bottled. Once she was safe, Ranko would join Ranma in ensuring that Lime and Mint did not interfere and Fa Shen did not get knocked into one of the springs. 

            All this planning was fast and loose. No one expected things to not get out of hand. But as they arrived, they were encouraged to see the Musk warriors had brought a barrel of water to the spring. It was just large enough for a young teen to bathe in. Upon closer inspection, they could see the Kaisuifuu hanging from a chain attached to the barrel. All that needed to be done was dip the magic kettle in the water, and it would possess the ability to unlock a curse. 

            "Which one of you is Her?" Herb greeted them coolly. 

            "I am Fa Shen," Ranma's twin announced, stepping forward. Herb studied him and bowed at the neck. Fa Shen inclined his head in return, keeping his eyes fixed on his challenger. 

            "Before we begin, I must know if you have agreed to my marriage challenge, and ask that the Chisuiiton be returned to me," he declared.

            "Once I have been restored to my proper gender, I will be fit to accept your challenge. I have Locking Instant Nyanniichuan, in case my original form was lost. I just need a bucket of water to activate it, which can be drawn from the barrel before you use the Kaisuifuu."

            Herb considered that for a moment. "And…?"

            "You can have the ladle back after I am back to normal," Ranko responded, cutting in and glaring at him. 

            Herb smirked, "Well then, we should make haste. There is still a battle to be fought before I may grant your request, Ranko. You may prepare the water She has requested." 

            Ranko cautiously approached the barrel. Behind it were a pair of buckets. Glancing inside, she noticed a fish and a frog were idly swimming in the water. Nodding, as she realized what that was supposed to prove, she dipped the bucket in the barrel and studied the chain securing the kettle to it's side. It looked tough, but Ryouga could break it with a simple tap. If her own body was toughened enough for it, she realized she too could use the bakusaitenketsu on it. Turning back to face Herb, she stated, "The fish and the frog don't prove anything, Herb."

            Herb considered that and approached Ranko. Dipping his hands in the water, he splashed his face, changing into a female version of himself. "Does this satisfy your suspicions?" She smiled. It seemed that Ranma, and by extension Ranko, had learned caution. Gesturing to Mint, standing guard by the barrel, Herb turned back to Fa Shen. "Your bath awaits."

            Fa Shen watched Mint scoop out the animals into a pair of glass jars, pick up the kettle and dip it into the barrel. It only took a moment before steam was billowing off the water in the cold morning air. Fa Shen handed Ranko the packet of Instant Nyanniichuan as he approached. Picking up the other bucket, he remarked, "You really didn't think I'd take an actual bath, did you?" Filling the bucket and tipping it over his head, he was instantly soaked from head to toe in steaming fluid. Shaking his long red hair, he sighed, "It looks like I was right. My true form was already lost."

            Fa Shen had expected this, but she had also expected Herb to be caught off guard. From the time frame the dragon prince had been given by the Guide, Fa Shen should have had another day before the instant curse degenerated. Instead, Herb waved dismissively, "No matter. It simply offers me a chance to satisfy my curiosity." Before anyone could ask what that meant, Herb snapped her fingers, and Lime grabbed Fa Shen and thrust him into the Nyanniichaun. The whole pool seemed to react to this intrusion, heaving and churning madly. There was a brilliant flash, as if a ball of chi had detonated under the water, and Fa Shen surged out of the pool as though the hounds of hell were at her heels. 

            "Fa Shen!?" Ranma and Ranko cried, having felt something stab at the back of their minds. There was no response from her as she whipped her head around searching for something. Snatching the jar containing the frog from Mint, she flung the poor animal at the spring. Nothing spectacular happened, and a moment later a confused frog pulled itself out of the water and started croaking on a lily pad. 

            "It's gone," Fa Shen gasped. "I took it back."

            "What!?" several voices exclaimed in shock. 

            Fa Shen whipped around, staring at Herb. "This spring is no longer cursed," she spelled it out. To make her point, she grabbed the other jar and flung it in. Everyone waited for another frog to come out, but when they edged forward, they could see the fish swimming merrily in it's new home. "It's just normal water now. How?"

            "So. It is true," Herb smiled and rose into the air. "Truly, you are Her."

            That was a clear signal that the battle was about to be joined. Fa Shen immediately shoved everything else out of her mind and sprang up to the pole that rose from the depths of the former Nyanniichuan. She could find an explanation for what had happened later. As Herb moved to attack, Ranko dropped the bucket she had been holding and sprinted toward the barrel of kaisuifuu water. Lime saw her move, and promptly kicked it over, spilling the precious cure over the ground before picking the barrel up in one hand. Ranko almost screamed in frustration, but focused on the now innocent spring behind him. Raising her arms, she let off a powerful chi blast right into the tiger-boy's chest. Exploding on contact, it shattered the barrel just as he was snapping the chain that bound the magic kettle to it. The force of the detonation sent him reeling back, throwing the kettle into the air. 

            "Mine!" Ranko cried, bunching to leap after it. Past her, Fa Shen jumped over Herb's charge. Herb landed on Fa Shen's pole as she alighted on another. 

            "No! The Sacred Kettle!" Mint was a fraction faster than Ranko, leaping after the kettle, bounding across the bamboo poles to intercept the falling artifact. As Ranko rocketed in pursuit, Ranma turned to Mousse and nodded. The master of hidden weapons pulled the chisuiiton out of his sleeve and quickly splashed the heir to the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts. The witnesses took this as a sign to retreat from the springs. No sane person wanted to be in the middle of a fight in Jusenkyo. Ranma shook the water out of his eyes, holding out a hand for the magic ladle and bucket, his gaze flickered between Ranko and Fa Shen. They were both racing in opposite directions, trying to close with Mint and Herb. Ranko was protected well enough for battling over cursed springs, but Fa Shen was in danger of a new curse mutating the one she just reclaimed. He took off after the legendary amazon and the dragon prince who would claim  her. 

            "Fa Shen! Wait!" he called out to her. 

            "Got it!" Mint caught the kettle, carefully orienting on a bamboo pole for landing and turned to see Ranko streaking towards him. With a shout, he caught Lime's attention and hurtled the kettle at the tiger-boy to keep it out of Ranko's hands. Ranko snarled, clipping the boy on the shoulder with an outstretched foot to reverse her direction and continue chasing after the kettle, knocking the wolf-boy into the spring below. 

            "You shouldn't have jumped in like that!" Ranko cried in apology. 

            "Too easy!" Fa Shen's voice called out. "Vengeance of Heaven!"

            "Is it…!?" Herb began as Fa Shen's clawed hand slipped through her guard. The dragon prince closed her eyes, searching her mind for a counter as Fa Shen completed the name of her attack.

            "Raking Claws!" A flash of light and deafening explosion filled the valley, as Fa Shen revealed the power of her electro-charged ki technique under an open sky, clutching at Herb's head and drawing a true lightning bolt down from a towering thunderhead. Ranma gasped, then groaned as Herb instantly transferred Fa Shen's charged ki into the bamboo pole underneath her as she leapt away. Acting as a lightning rod, the charged pole channeled the massive arc of electricity into the pool below. 

            "Nice! You should be toast!" Fa Shen was impressed in spite of herself.

            "I am a master of ki," Herb preened. "Lime! I need hot water!"

            "Coming, Herb!" Lime lunged up to catch the kettle, then raced in the same direction Herb was leading Fa Shen. Tucking the kettle under one arm, he pulled out a thermos and hurled it toward the dragon prince. Ranko boosted her flight with ki, cutting the tiger-boy off by landing in front of him. 

            "Give me the kettle, Lime!" she growled. 

            "Herb has forbidden it!" Lime hesitated only long enough to see his prince catch the thermos, and then dodged to Ranko's left. Stretching to reach a different pole, he caught sight of Mint exploding out of the pool Ranko had dumped him in. Unchanged by the cursed waters, it was suddenly obvious that the Musk boys had also protected themselves with the Chisuiiton. Mint tried to converge on his compatriot and Ranko, shouting for the other boy to toss the kettle to him. 

            "Quick! Back to me!"

            "Here it comes, Mint!"

            "Would you stop that! I need that thing!" Ranko fumed. 

            As Ranko lunged to intercept the toss, Herb quickly spilled hot water over herself and turned back to Fa Shen. Ranko's hands closed on empty air, forcing her to shift her attention to her landing. As she came to rest, Fa Shen and Herb launched themselves at each other, trading blows in genuine aerial combat. After raining a series of kicks, thrusts and furious elbow and knee strikes, they pushed away from each other to reach opposing perches, before they dropped below the height of the bamboo poles. 

            "Be careful, Fa Shen!" Ranma warned, running toward her, spanning the gaps between poles with giant steps. 

            "I'm trying, Ranma!" she shouted back, jumping out of the way as a ki blast shattered the pole she was just standing on. "Are you trying to screw up my curse, Herb!?" she raged, catching her balance and clutching her heart. 

            "Perish the thought! I am just keeping you off balance," he smirked. 

            Ranko was now moving roughly away from Fa Shen and Herb, as Mint hugged the Kaisuifuu to his chest and raced past the Nanniichuan. "Where do you think you're going with that!?" Ranko could sense Lime charging up her wake, ready for Mint to lob the kettle over her head again to prolong this game of pickle. "If you do that one more time, I'm gonna break your arm so you can't throw anymore!" she threatened, closing on Mint's back. 

            "I guess it's true, Lime! Women really are more violent than men!" Mint loudly observed, for his companion's benefit, cringing at Ranko's threat. 

            "Do you want me to brain you too!?" Ranko shook her fist at him. 

            "I believe you are right, Mint!" Lime agreed, wide eyed. 

            "You're open!" Herb shouted, as Fa Shen arced in the air above him, readying a chi blast. Before Fa Shen could summon her aura and focus it in her hands, Herb snapped off one of his own powerful bolts, catching her right in the stomach. As Fa Shen was blasted away, Ranma noticed she was too stunned by the blast to control her flight.

            "Fa Shen!" he shouted, realizing he could not catch up to her. Gauging her descent, he noticed Ranko in that direction and hollered, "Ranko! Catch her!"

            Ranko whipped around, reacting at once to Ranma's distress, and spotted Fa Shen flying towards her. Sprinting over the poles, she closed on her twin, and realized exactly where she would land if Ranko did not get there in time. Putting on a burst of speed, she positioned herself on the bank of the Nanniichuan. At the last moment, she launched herself up, catching Fa Shen in the air and letting the girl's momentum knock them both toward the pole sticking out of the spring. Pausing to slap Fa Shen's face, to shake her out of the effects of Herb's powerful blast, Ranko noticed Ranma, Herb, Lime and Mint racing in to bracket them. 

            "Snap out of it! Lover boy's still coming," Ranko warned. 

            "Damn he has a lot of power," Fa Shen muttered, shaking her head. 

            "You should not interfere, Ranko!" Herb challenged, charging up for a blast as he closed within shouting distance. 

            "You shouldn't be knocking her into the springs, you idiot!" Ranma bawled, coming in at an angle, readying the ladle to splash Fa Shen when he was in range. It seemed such a stupid thing for the prince to risk, Ranma had to wonder if he did it just to lure Ranko away from the kettle. 

            Unfortunately, Herb fired at the twins before Ranma could make such an accusation, aiming for the pole they rested on, and shattering it below their feet. As the bamboo disintegrated, Ranko was unable to generate enough force to launch off, and could only heave Fa Shen towards the embankment as she fell into the water. 

            While Herb paused to unleash his attack, Ranma was able to take the lead, landing next to Fa Shen and splashing her with the ladle, "Don't worry, you're safe now!" he announced, turning to see Ranko breech the surface of the pool, "Are you okay, Ranko?"

            "'M fine. If she's safe, help me get the kettle!"

            Fa Shen was one step ahead, lifting her eyes to see Mint racing toward them with the kettle in his arms. Refocusing the blast she had intended for Herb, she target the top of the pole he was about to land on, causing it to become a foot shorter than the boy expected. When Mint's foot came down on air, he instinctively threw out his arms to recover from the misstep, throwing the kettle clumsily away as he scrambled for some kind of footing. Ranma caught this and raced forward, leaping up to catch the kettle and lob it toward Ranko, as Lime barreled in to tackle him. "Ranko! Catch!"

            Mint hit water and began thrashing toward the edge of the pool. 

            Fa Shen took her eyes off the flying kettle at the sound of Herb's arrival, and launched herself at him to keep him distracted. Ranma and Lime crashed into a neighboring spring with a loud splash. In the Nanniichuan, Ranko attempted to stand, so she could catch the Kaisuifuu, but a rock turned under her foot, causing her to topple face first into the water, as the kettle passed over her head to land in the pool behind her. In the blink of an eye, the water heated enough to unlock the Chisuiiton, exposing Ranko to the now scalding water's curse. Ranko reared back, yelling in a masculine voice, "Hot! Hot! Hot!"

            Ranma pulled himself up and darted out of the spring at about the same time Ranko shot out of the steaming Nanniichuan. Stumbling onto the narrow banks, they suddenly came face to face, and gaped. Around them, everyone else was staring in surprise, the fight between Fa Shen and Herb momentarily suspended. 

            "You've been cursed by hot water," Herb strode forward, bending down to retrieve the Chisuiiton. Fa Shen saw this, and snatched the artifact away from him, glaring. He straightened and glared back. Recovering his dignity, he considered his impulse. Fa Shen backed off, waiting to hear what he had in mind. "The Chisuiiton always produces cold water. Please, use it. The Kaisuifuu is right here. I just have to know…" he insisted, pointing at Ranko. 

            "Ranma, get the kettle out of the pool. And be careful!" Fa Shen ordered, approaching Ranko with the ladle. Ranko looked up at Fa Shen and nodded. Fa Shen splashed the boy Ranko had just become. The magically chilled water triggered his change back to female and locked her form. "It's backwards. It really is a hot water curse."

            "It is fortunate you were locked before," Herb sighed. "I was afraid for a moment there that heating the pool would just make the curse permanent."

            Ranma found a stray bamboo pole and proceeded to try fishing the kettle out of the Nanniichuan. "Are you serious, Herb?" he asked. The dragon prince nodded woodenly. Ranma turned to look at Ranko, "I guess you got lucky, Ranko. Cold water still turns you into a girl. That's not a problem, is it? I mean, this is just like getting your old curse back, right?"

            Ranko blinked and nodded. "Yeah. I guess so. But if I can be locked as a girl…" she trailed off, looking up at Herb accusingly. She did not have to say that Herb could still challenge her if he lost to Fa Shen. The part of her that had been aching to be a man was already howling over her male form being locked away. With a shudder she realized what would have happen if she had been standing in a different spring when Ranma threw her the kettle. As much as she ached to get her hands on it again, it was just plain stupid to continue fighting over it among the springs. Seeing Ranma hook the kettle and pull it out of the water, she stood up and declared, "Herb, we have both of the artifacts in our possession. If you want them back, I suggest you stop this fight for now until we can find out if this," she gestured to herself, the matter of her curse, "is okay."

            Herb watched Ranma and Fa Shen tighten their grips on the Musk's most valued treasures. For the moment, he had lost the upper hand. Putting on a mask of regal indifference, he nodded, "I will postpone my challenge for now. As I am the only one present not proof against curses, it is not in my interest to remain here and fight." The thought suddenly occurred to him that the cure to his condition was right next to him. Turning with sudden anticipation, he gazed at the spring. His eyes narrowed and his face fell as he noticed the steam still rising from the surface. As long as it remained heated, it would do him no good. If he remembered correctly, the magic of the kettle would ensure that the spring remained hot for some time to come, as well. Gritting his teeth, he stalked away. "Truly, there is no reason to remain here."

            Ranko considered what must have gone through the dragon prince's mind and turned to Ranma. "Um… You know…" she began.

            Ranma blanched. Looking down at himself, he shook his head. "No. This is permanent enough for me. I wouldn't want to risk it." Something in his bones told him that having two curses with the same form was not the same as being a normal man. Holding the kettle nervously, and proceeding very carefully, he encouraged the others, "Come on. Let's get outta here."

Epilogue

Evening had settled over Jusenkyo once again, laying the chaos of the day to rest. Since the morning battle, there had been one tense argument or debate after another, until the only thought on Ranko's mind was to slip away and lose herself in the comfort of the hot springs. For the first time in a week, the prospect came with the assurance of a numbing tingle and the familiarity of her male form. It should be strange that would relieve her; that only as she slipped into the onsen and became a he, did he feel like things were finally back to normal. Granted, there was a moment earlier in the day when he was reminded of the inconvenience of the curse, as he was doused repeatedly with hot and cold water, or had his curse locked and unlocked, to determine exactly what this new curse was like. According to the guide, there had always been the rare victim of a hot water curse. Usually it was the result of water being taken from a spring and heated before someone was splashed. In his case, the matter was complicated by the additional magic he had been exposed to at the time. The magic of the Chisuiiton and the Kaisuifuu had been absorbed by his curse. If he wanted to, he could lock himself in female form while in cold water. He needed to be in hot water to unlock himself and turn male. 

            It was not complete control. He could not be locked in male form, since even water proof soap was repelled by the chisuiiton effect in his curse. In fact, Fa Shen had told him it was unlikely Ranko would be able to master the curse, since his normal form was female. Ranma and Fa Shen would have the same problem, since they were the only ones who did not unlock themselves before the Chisuiiton and Kaisuifuu were given back to Herb. Like Ranko, they were now locked in their natural forms. As Fa Shen had explained, the trick to using a lock to master a curse was the ability to draw upon a mastered form, which was the person's natural form by default. Being locked in that form made it more unlikely for someone to master a new form. Ranko did not fully understand the logic, but thought he might be able to try the slow approach, since he was already half way there. It would be harder to learn how to keep from changing into a girl in cold water, but if he ever managed it, he could attempt changing without any water. But that was something to worry about in the future. 

            For the moment, he was more concerned about what the future held. Herb had been informed of Cologne's intention to adopt Nodoka, and Nodoka's intention to adopt Fa Shen. Together, this would make it possible for Fa Shen to be named Cologne's heir. In spite of the fact that the trio had finally convinced Cologne to go along with their version of events, claiming that Fa Shen had been mistaken for Ranma, and locked in male form accidentally, Shampoo would not be able to reclaim her favored status. Herb could still pursue marriage to Fa Shen, but if he succeeded, it would verge on becoming an alliance to merge the two tribes. It was not exactly a bad idea, since it created a symbiotic union of male and female warrior traditions, a sort of equal but separate system that benefited everyone. It was still weird and made everyone squirm to think of it. 

            It was very likely that Herb would turn his attention to Ranko instead. That would also be an Amazon-Musk union, but it would not effect everyone on both sides. Of course, Ryouga strenuously objected to that suggestion, when he was not turned into a pig by the thought of it. 

            Ranko sighed. "Oh, Ryouga. You idiot…"

            "What did I do now?" Ryouga stood up in a neighboring pool and glared at the startled Ranko. Seeing that Ranko was male at the moment, he came over and joined him. As he settled back, waiting for Ranko to answer, he realized this was the first time they had been together in private.

            Ranko sighed. He knew this had been coming. "Just a general observation," he finally answered. Looking away, he told himself they needed to talk, but he just did not know how to start. They had both been there when Nodoka told Herb that Ranko and Ryouga were married by amazon law. The council had not ruled on it, but the fact was, Ranma had given the lost boy up. It was almost certain to be supported by the elders. Not willing to offer Herb any encouragement, Ranko had been forced to bite her lip and not protest. "Do you think Herb will go after Ranma if he can't get me or Fa Shen?"

            Ryouga shuddered. "Maybe. And I am sure Shampoo and Mousse will both be chasing after you again soon." Ryouga snorted and shook his head in disbelief. "They've been plotting together all afternoon."

            "Shampoo's back to normal already?" Ranko was surprised. 

            "I gave her a hot oil bath. I figured, it broke the soap lock on me, it would work on her. And it did." Ryouga rubbed his eyes, "She's been going on about how I didn't really sleep with you, and how, even if the council accepts our… marriage… she could still challenge me, and that would give her rights to be with you. If Mousse does the same with you, he gets rights to be with her."

            "It looks like being married to each other for a week did more than we thought, if they can plot together over something like that," Ranko groaned. The reaction was not entirely about Mousse and Shampoo. Now that it had been mentioned, they had to talk about it. "What are we going to do about that? The marriage thing, I mean…"

            Ryouga hunched in on himself. "My feelings haven't changed. I fell in love with a girl, and she's… you. I want to be married to you, Ranko, but I know you hate to have it forced on you like this. Besides, I still don't buy into this whole amazon thing. I may have beaten you once or twice, but… Let's face it, I've never defeated you. You may not actually be Ranma, but, you're enough like him to be able to say, 'Ranko never loses'."

            "You got that right!" Ranko clenched his fists under the water. They both fell silent for a while. Timidly, Ranko spoke up, "I still don't know what to do about Ucchan. When… When I thought you didn't want me, I told her I…" He closed his mouth grimly. "I didn't promise to marry her, or nothin' but I told her it wasn't impossible. Ranma couldn't marry her because he thinks of her as a guy, but for me…" she let it trail off. 

            "Do you want her? I mean, if she became a guy for you, would you want Ukyo?" Ryouga asked in a pained voice. 

            "She's my friend, Ryouga. I want her to be happy," Ranko looked down, hugging his knees to himself. It struck him then that, as a boy, he was no Ranma. Ranko was just not that assured of himself as a male. It fit him, in form and function, but there was something in spirit that distinguished him from his twin and predecessor. 

            "Maybe it's best then," Ryouga commented. "I mean, the engagement is there. That sort of puts her on the same footing as me, right? After all, you always treated the marriage to Shampoo as more of an engagement. Why don't we do that? If they say we're married, we can just act like it's an engagement, and when… if we decide to make it official, we can have a ceremony. Whatever you like."

            Ranko looked up at him. "It's not quite that easy. But… I suppose that would work. It's not like I'm just an amazon." He reflected silently for a moment, wondering if it was fair to give Ukyo hope, string her along. But knowing Ukyo, she would assume she had an equal claim. She just would not give up, and neither would any of the others. That was the real problem. He sighed, "You know it will leave me open to everyone else, don't you?"

            Ryouga nodded. "It doesn't matter. Even if no one else does, I have to give you a choice. I don't want to be with you if you don't want me. I can't take that. I'd rather have to fight over you with everyone else, than fight with you. I don't want us to be Ranma and Akane."

            Ranko found himself nodding at that. A part of him still loved Akane, but even if he felt it as powerfully as he did with Ryouga, he would not want to go back to being Akane's punching bag. Jealousy was something he found extremely unattractive. Not that Ryouga could not be just as bad. Nothing would make Ranko forget what a complete and utter jerk Ryouga could be. It was as big a problem as his gloominess. The pig curse was useful for weaning the boy off of depression, especially since it made his best attack useless and would force him to learn something else. Ranko wanted to make sure he did not switch to anger or jealousy instead, but he really did not know how to prevent it. With so much uncertainty about the sanity and stability of the man he loved, maybe it was best to keep the relationship at arm's distance. 

            "You're right, Ryouga. It's more important right now for us to be friends," he finally responded. Meeting the other boy's eyes, he smiled. Ryouga looked back, still struggling with uncertainty and looming depression. If there was anything as attractive to him as the offer of love, it was the offer of friendship. It was an invitation to a state of being he was quite unfamiliar with. 

            Peace. 

_AN: This might seem to be a bit abrupt of an ending, especially in so busy a chapter. Certainly, things are left a bit up in the air. For that, all I can say is, this is a part of life. A new chapter starts before the old chapter ends. There is a great deal more to come, but it is no longer possible to see Ranma and Fa Shen as mere reflections of Ranko. To continue this story, it is necessary to take up a new title and explore the life that unfolds after the events that set Ranma, Ranko and Fa Shen on diverging paths. This story of unity and diversity will come to you in **Ranko Nibunnoichi : Refractions** after a short hiatus. I hope you have enjoyed this tale of the emergence of a very different Ranko, the resurrection of a very different Drowned Girl, and the very extraordinary challenges of our familiar Ranma. I hope you come back for more!_

_^_^  _

A. V. Morgan 


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